LIBRARY 

UNIVERf.UYOF 
CALIFG*f««A 

SAN  DIEGO 


GHyurdj  Stutmtg 
nf  the  JJanfir 


Cl 


Ex  Dono 
Dale   . 


<gnglt0l)  Mtn  of  Cetter0 

EDITED  BY  JOHN  MORLEY 


SIR  WALTER  SCOTT 


Sir  Walter  Scott 


RICHARD    HOLT    HUTTON 

AUTHOR  OF 

"CRITICISMS    ON    CONTEMPORARY    THOUGHT" 
"  ESSAYS,  THEOLOGICAL  AND  LITERARY  " 


Englisb  flDen  of  nutters 

EDITED  BY 

JOHN    MORLEY 


HARPER   &   BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 

NEW     YORK     AND     LONDON 

1902 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 


IT  will  "be  observed  that  the  greater  part  of  this  little 
book  has  been  taken  in  one  form  or  other  from  Lockhart's 
Life  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  ten  volumes.  No  introduction 
to  Scott  would  be  worth  much  in  which  that  course  was 
not  followed.  Indeed,  excepting  Sir  Walter's  own  writ- 
ings, there  is  hardly  any  other  great  source  of  information 
about  him ;  and  that  is  so  full,  that  hardly  anything  need- 
ful to  illustrate  the  subject  of  Scott's  life  remains  un- 
touched. As  regards  the  only  matters  of  controversy, — 
Scott's  relations  to  the  Ballantynes,  I  have  taken  care  to 
check  Mr.  Lockhart's  statements  by  reading  those  of  the 
representatives  of  the  Ballantyne  brothers ;  but  with  this 
exception,  Sir  Walter's  own  works  and  Lockhart's  life 
of  him  are  the  great  authorities  concerning  his  character 
and  his  story. 

Just  ten  years  ago  Mr.  Gladstone,  in  expressing  to 
the  late  Mr.  Hope  Scott  the  great  delight  which  the 
perusal  of  Lockhart's  life  of  Sir  Walter  had  given  him, 
wrote,  "  I  may  be  wrong,  but  I  am  vaguely  under  the 
impression  that  it  has  never  had  a  really  wide  circulation. 
If  so,  it  is  the  saddest  pity,  and  I  should  greatly  like 
(without  any  censure  on  its  present  length)  to  see  pub- 
lished an  abbreviation  of  it."  Mr.  Gladstone  did  not 
then  know  that  as  long  ago  as  1848  Mr.  Lookhartdid 


yl  PREFATORY  NOTE. 

himself  prepare  such  an  abbreviation,  in  which  the  ori- 
ginal eighty-four  chapters  were  compressed  into  eighteen, 
— though  the  abbreviation  contained  additions  as  well 
as  compressions.  But  even  this  abridgment  is  itself  a 
bulky  volume  of  800  pages,  containing,  I  should  think, 
considerably  more  than  a  third  of  the  reading  in  the  ori- 
ginal ten  volumes,  and  is  not,  therefore,  very  likely  to  be 
preferred  to  the  completer  work.  In  some  respects  I  hope 
that  this  introduction  may  supply,  better  than  that  bulky 
abbreviation,  what  Mr.  Gladstone  probably  meant  to  sug- 
gest,— some  slight  miniature  taken  from  the  great  pic- 
ture with  care  enough  to  tempt  on  those  who  look  on  it 
to  the  study  of  the  fuller  life,  as  well  as  of  that  image  of 
Sir  Walter  which  is  impressed  by  his  own  hand  upon 
his  works. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  L 

PAGE 

AHCESTBY,  PARENTAGE,  AND  CHILDHOOD       .       •       ,       »         1 

CHAPTBE  H. 
YOUTH  —  CHOICE  OF  A  PROFESSION       .        .       ,        .       •        18 

CHAPTER  IIL 
LOVE  AND  MARRIAGE   .....        ...        30 

CHAPTER  IT. 
EARLIEST  POETRY  AND  BOEDER  MINSTRELSY        ...        36 

CHAPTER  Y. 
SCOTT'S  MATURES  POEMS     ...»•••       44 

CHAPTER  VL 
COMPANIONS  AND  FRIENDS    ...••».       60 

CHAPTER  VIL 
FIRST  COUNTRY  HOMES         .        .        .        .        •       •       .        69 


CHAPTER 
REMOVAL  TO  ABBOTSFOKD,  AND  LIJK  THERE        . 


vm  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

MM 
SCOTT'S  PARTNERSHIPS  WITH  THE  BALLANTTHW  «        .       84 

CHAPTER  X. 
THB  WATEKLBT  Nom.8      ...        .....       94 

CHAPTER  XI. 

SCOTT'S   MOKALITT   AND    RELIGION  .  .  .  122 

CHAPTER  XIL 

DISTRACTIONS   AND   AMUSEMENTS   AT   ABBOT8FOBD  .  .  .         128 

CHAPTER  XIIL 
SCOTT  AND  GEOKOE  IV.       .......      184 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
SCOTT  AS  A  POLITICIAN .      189 

CHAPTER  XV. 
SCOTT  IN  ADVERSITY »       .      146 

CHAPTER  XVL 
THB  LAST  YEAE ,        •       .      162 

CHAPTER  XVIL 

TFX  HND  or  THE  STBUCWLI 178 


SIB  WALTEE  SCOTT. 

CHAPTER  L 

ANCESTRY,    PARENTAGE,    AND    CHILDHOOD. 

SIB  WALTEB  SCOTT  was  the  first  literary  man  of  a  great 
riding,  sporting,  and  fighting  clan.  Indeed,  his  father — 
a  Writer  to  the  Signet,  or  Edinburgh  solicitor — was  th« 
first  of  his  race  to  adopt  a  town  life  and  a  sedentary  pro- 
fession. Sir  Walter  was  the  lineal  descendant — six 
generations  removed— of  that  Walter  Scott  commemo- 
rated in  The  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  who  is  known 
in  Border  history  and  legend  as  Auld  Wat  of  Harden. 
Auld  Wat's  son  William,  captured  by  Sir  Gideon  Murray, 
of  Elibank,  during  a  raid  of  the  Scotts  on  Sir  Gideon's 
lands,  was,  as  tradition  says,  given  his  choice  between  being 
hanged  on  Sir  Gideon's  private  gallows,  and  marrying  the 
ugliest  of  Sir  Gideon's  three  ugly  daughters,  Meikle- 
mouthed  Meg,  reputed  as  carrying  off  the  prize  of  ugliness 
among  the  women  of  four  counties.  Sir  William  was  a  hand- 
some man.  He  took  three  days  to  consider  the  alternative 
proposed  to  him,  but  chose  life  with  the  large-mouthed 
lady  in  the  end ;  and  found  her,  according  to  the  tradition 
which  the  poet,  her  descendant,  has  transmitted,  an  excel- 
1* 


2  SIE  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHIP, 

lent  wife,  with  a  fine  talent  for  pickling  the  beef  which 
her  husband  stole  from  the  herds  of  his  foes.  Meikle- 
mouthed  Meg  transmitted  a  distinct  trace  of  her  large 
mouth  to  all  her  descendants,  and  not  least  to  him 
who  was  to  use  his  "  meikle "  mouth  to  best  advan- 
tage as  the  spokesman  of  his  race.  Eather  more  than 
half-way  between  Auld  Wat  of  Harden's  times — i  e,, 
the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century — and  those  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  poet  and  novelist,  lived  Sir  Walter's 
great-grandfather,  Walter  Scott  generally  known  in 
Teviotdale  by  the  surname  of  Beardie,  because  he  would 
never  cut  his  beard  after  the  banishment  of  the  Stuarts, 
and  who  took  arms  in  their  cause  and  lost  by  his  intrigues 
on  their  behalf  almost  all  that  he  had,  besides  running 
the  greatest  risk  of  being  hanged  as  a  traitor.  This  was 
the  ancestor  of  whom  Sir  Walter  speaks  in  the  intro 
duction  to  the  last  canto  of  Marmion : — 

"  And  thus  my  Christmas  still  I  hold, 
Where  my  great  grandsire  came  of  old, 
With  amber  beard  and  flaxen  hair, 
And  reverend  apostolic  air, — 
The  feast  and  holy  tide  to  share, 
And  mix  sobriety  with  wine, 
And  honest  mirth  with  thoughts  divine; 
Small  thought  was  his  in  after  time 
E'er  to  be  hitch'd  into  a  rhyme, 
The  simple  sire  could  only  boast 
That  he  was  loyal  to  his  cost ; 
The  banish' d  race  of  kings  revered, 
And  lost  his  land — but  kept  his  beard." 

Sir  Walter  inherited  from  Beardie  that  sentimental 
Stuart  bias  which  his  better  judgment  condemned,  but 
which  seemed  to  be  rather  part  of  his  blood  than  of  his 
mind.  And  most  useful  to  him  this  sentiment  un- 


i.J        ANCESTRY,  PARENTAGE,  AND  CHILDHOOD.          3 

doubtedly  was  in  helping  him  to  restore  the  mould  and 
fashion  of  the  past.  Beardie's  second  son  was  Sin 
Walter's  grandfather,  and  to  him  he  owed  not  only  hia 
first  childish  experience  of  the  delights  of  country  life, 
but  also, — in  his  own  estimation  at  least, — that  risky, 
speculative,  and  sanguine  spirit  which  had  so  much  in- 
fluence over  his  fortunes.  The  good  man  of  Sandy- 
Knowe,  wishing  to  breed  sheep,  and  being  destitute  of 
capital,  borrowed  307.  from  a  shepherd  who  was  willing 
to  invest  that  sum  for  him  in  sheep ;  and  the  two  set  off 
to  purchase  a  flock  near  Wooler,  in  Northumberland; 
but  when  the  shepherd  had  found  what  he  thought 
would  suit  their  purpose,  he  returned  to  find  his  master 
galloping  about  a  fine  hunter,  on  which  he  had  spent 
the  whole  capital  in  hand.  This  speculation,  however, 
prospered.  A  few  days  later  Eobert  Scott  displayed 
the  qualities  of  the  hunter  to  such  admirable  effect 
with  John  Scott  of  Harden'a  hounds,  that  he  sold  the 
horse  for  double  the  money  he  had  given,  and,  unlike  his 
grandson,  abandoned  speculative  purchases  there  and 
then.  In  the  latter  days  of  his  clouded  fortunes,  after 
Ballantyne's  and  Constable's  failure,  Sir  Walter  was  accus- 
tomed to  point  to  the  picture  of  his  grandfather  and 
say,  "  Blood  will  out :  my  building  and  planting  was 
but  his  buying  the  hunter  before  he  stocked  his  sheep- 
walk,  over  again."  But  Sir  Walter  added,  says  Mr. 
Lockhart,  as  he  glanced  at  the  likeness  of  his  own  staid 
and  prudent  father,  "  Yet  it  was  a  wonder,  too,  for  I  have 
a  thread  of  the  attorney  in  me,"  which  was  doubtless  the 
case ;  nor  was  that  thread  the  least  of  his  inheritances, 
for  from  his  father  certainly  Sir  Walter  derived  that 
disposition  towards  conscientious,  plodding  industry, 
legalism  of  mind,  methodical  habits  of  work,  and  9 


4  SIE  WALTER  SCOTT.  fcH4P, 

generous,  equitable  interpretation  of  the  scope  of  all  hia 
obligations  to  others,  which,  prized  and  cultivated  by 
him  as  they  were,  turned  a  great  genius,  which,  espe- 
cially considering  the  hare-brained  element  in  him,  might 
easily  have  been  frittered  away  or  devoted  to  worth- 
less ends,  to  such  fruitful  account,  and  stamped  it  with 
so  grand  an  impress  of  personal  magnanimity  and  forti- 
tude. Sir  Walter's  father  reminds  one  in  not  a  few 
of  the  formal  and  rather  martinetish  traits  which  are 
related  of  him,  of  the  father  of  Goethe,  "  a  formal  man, 
with  strong  ideas  of  strait-laced  education,  passionately 
orderly  (he  thought  a  good  book  nothing  without  a  good 
binding),  and  never  so  much  excited  as  by  a  necessary 
deviation  from  the  '  pre-established  harmony '  of  house- 
hold rules."  That  description  would  apply  almost  wholly 
to  the  sketch  of  old  Mr.  Scott  which  the  novelist  has 
given  us  under  the  thin  disguise  of  Alexander  Fairford, 
Writer  to  the  Signet,  in  Redgauntlet,  a  figure  confessedly 
meant,  in  its  chief  features,  to  represent  his  father.  To 
this  Sir  Walter  adds,  in  one  of  his  later  journals,  the 
trait  that  his  father  was  a  man  of  fine  presence,  who  con- 
ducted all  conventional  arrangements  with  a  certain  gran- 
deur and  dignity  of  air,  and  "  absolutely  loved  a  funeral." 
"  He  seemed  to  preserve  the  list  of  a  whole  bead-roll  of 
cousins  merely  for  the  pleasure  of  being  at  their 
funerals,  which  he  was  often  asked  to  superintend,  and 
I  suspect  had  sometimes  to  pay  for.  He  carried  me  with 
him  as  often  as  he  could  to  these  mortuary  ceremonies; 
but  feeling  I  was  not,  like  him,  either  useful  or  ornamental, 
I  escaped  as  often  as  I  could."  This  strong  dash  of  the 
conventional  in  Scott's  father,  tLis  satisfaction  in  seeing 
people  fairly  to  the  door  of  life,  and  taking  his  final  leave 
of  them  there,  with  something  of  a  ceremonious  flourish 


I.]        ANCESTRY,  PARENTAGE,  AND  CHILDHOOD.         8 

of  observance,  was,  however,  combined  with  a  much 
nobler  and  deeper  kind  of  orderliness.  Sir  Walter  used 
to  say  that  his  father  had  lost  no  small  part  of  a  very 
flourishing  business,  by  insisting  that  his  clients  should  do 
their  duty  to  their  own  people  better  than  they  were 
themselves  at  all  inclined  to  do  it.  And  of  this  generous 
strictness  in  sacrificing  his  own  interests  to  his  sympathy 
for  others,  the  son  had  as  much  as  the  father. 

Sir  Walter's  mother,  who  was  a  Miss  Kutherford,  the 
daughter  of  a  physician,  had  been  better  educated  than 
most  Scotchwomen  of  her  day,  in  spite  of  having  been 
sent  "to  be  finished  off"  by  "the  honourable  Mrs. 
Ogilvie,"  whose  training  was  so  effective,  in  one  direction 
at  least,  that  even  in  her  eightieth  year  Mrs.  Scott  could 
not  enjoy  a  comfortable  rest  in  her  chair,  but  "  took  a? 
much  care  to  avoid  touching  her  chair  with  her  back,  as  if 
she  had  still  been  under  the  stern  eyes  of  Mrs.  Ogilvie." 
None  the  less  Mrs.  Scott  was  a  motherly,  comfortable 
woman,  with  much  tenderness  of  heart,  and  a  well-stored, 
vivid  memory.  Sir  Walter,  writing  of  her,  after  his 
mother's  death,  to  Lady  Louisa  Stewart,  says,  "  She  had 
a  mind  peculiarly  well  stored  with  much  acquired  infor- 
mation and  natural  talent,  and  as  she  was  very  old,  and 
had  an  excellent  memory,  she  could  draw,  without  the 
least  exaggeration  or  affectation,  the  most  striking  pictures 
of  the  past  age.  If  I  have  been  able  to  do  anything 
in  the  way  of  painting  the  past  times,  it  is  very  much 
from  the  studies  with  which  she  presented  me.  She 
connected  a  long  period  of  time  with  the  present  generation, 
for  she  remembered,  and  had  often  spoken  with,  a  person 
who  perfectly  recollected  the  battle  of  Dunbar  and  Oliver 
Cromwell's  subsequent  entry  into  Edinburgh."  On  the 
day  before  the  stroke  of  paralysis  which  carried  her  off,  she 


6  SIB  WALTEB  SCOTT.  [CHAK 

had  told  Mr.  *nd  Mrs.  Scott  of  Harden,  "with  great 
accuracy,  the  real  story  of  the  Bride  of  Lammermuir,  and 
pointed  out  wherein  it  differed  from  the  novel  She  had 
all  the  names  of  the  parties,  and  pointed  out  (for  she 
was  a  great  genealogist)  their  connexion  with  existing 
families."  '  Sir  Walter  records  many  evidences  of  the 
tenderness  of  his  mother's  nature,  and  he  returned 
warmly  her  affection  for  himself.  His  executors,  in  lifting 
up  his  desk,  the  evening  after  his  burial,  found  "  arranged 
in  careful  order  a  series  of  little  objects,  which  had 
obviously  been  so  placed  there  that  his  eye  might  rest  on 
them  every  morning  before  he  began  his  tasks.  These 
were  the  old-fashioned  boxes  that  had  garnished  his 
mother's  toilette,  when  he,  a  sickly  child,  slept  in  her 
dressing-room, — the  silver  taper-stand,  which  the  young 
advocate  had  bought  for  her  with  his  first  five-guinea  fee, 
— a  row  of  small  packets  inscribed  with  her  hand,  and 
containing  the  hair  of  those  of  her  offspring  that  had  died 
before  her, — his  father's  snuff-box,  and  etui-case, — and 
more  things  of  the  like  sort."  *  A  story,  characteristic 
of  both  Sir  Walter's  parents,  is  told  by  Mr.  Lockhart  which 
will  serve  better  than  anything  I  can  remember  to  bring 
the  father  and  mother  of  Scott  vividly  before  the  imagi- 
nation. His  father,  like  Mr.  Alexander  Fairford,  in 
Redgauntlet,  though  himself  a  strong  Hanoverian,  inhe- 
rited enough  feeling  for  the  Stuarts  from  his  grandfather 
Beardie,  and  sympathized  enough  with  those  who  were,  as 
he  neutrally  expressed  it,  "  out  in  '45,"  to  ignore  as  much 
as  possible  any  phrases  offensive  to  the  Jacobites.  For 
instance,  he  always  called  Charles  Edward  not  the  Pre- 

1  Lockhart' s  Life  of  Scott,  vi.  172-3.    The  edition  referred  to  is 
throughout  the  edition  of  1839  in  ten  volumes 
*  Lockhart'a  Life  of  Scott,  x.  241. 


I.]   ANCESTBY,  PABBNTAGE,  AND  CHILDHOOD.     < 

fender  but  the  Chevalier, — and  he  did  business  for  many 
Jacobites : — 

"  Mrs.  Scott's  curiosity  was  strongly  excited  one  autumn 
by  the  regular  appearance  at  a  certain  hour  every  evening 
of  a  sedan  chair,  to  deposit  a  person  carefully  muffled  up  in 
a  mantle,  who  was  immediately  ushered  into  her  husband's 
private  room,  and  commonly  remained  with  him  there  until 
long  after  the  usual  bed-time  of  this  orderly  family.  Mr. 
Scott  answered  her  repeated  inquiries  with  a  vagueness  that 
irritated  the  lady's  feelings  more  and  more;  until  at  last 
she  could  bear  the  thing  no  longer ;  but  one  evening,  just  as 
she  heard  the  bell  ring  as  for  the  stranger's  chair  to  carry 
him  off,  she  made  her  appearance  within  the  forbidden 
parlour  with  a  salver  in  her  hand,  observing  that  she 
thought  the  gentlemen  had  sat  so  long  they  would  be 
better  of  a  dish  of  tea,  and  had  ventured  accordingly  to 
bring  some  for  their  acceptance.  The  stranger,  a  person  of 
distinguished  appearance,  and  richly  dressed,  bowed  to  the 
lady  and  accepted  a  cup ;  but  her  husband  knit  his  brows, 
and  refused  very  coldly  to  partake  the  refreshment.  A 
moment  afterwards  the  visitor  withdrew,  and  Mr.  Scott, 
lifting  up  the  window-sash,  took  the  cup,  which  he  had  left 
empty  on  the  table,  and  tossed  it  out  upon  the  pavement. 
The  lady  exclaimed  for  her  china,  but  was  put  to  silence  by 
her  husband's  saying,  "  I  can  forgive  your  little  curiosity, 
madam,  but  you  must  pay  the  penalty.  I  may  admit  into 
my  house,  on  a  piece  of  business,  persons  wholly  unworthy 
to  be  treated  as  guests  by  my  wife.  Neither  lip  of  me  nor 
of  mine  comes  after  Mr.  Murray  of  Broughton's.' 

"  This  was  the  unhappy  man  who,  after  attending  Prince 
Charles  Stuart  as  his  secretary  throughout  the  greater  part 
of  his  expedition,  condescended  to  redeem  his  own  life  and 
fortune  by  bearing  evidence  against  the  noblest  of  bis  late 
master's  adherents,  when — 

"  Pitied  by  gentle  hearts,  Kilmarnock  died, 
The  brave,  Balmerino  were  on  thy  side."  * 

I  Lockbart's  Life  of  Scctt,  i.  243-4. 


8  BIB  WALTER  SCOTT. 

" Broughton's  saucer" — i.  e.  the  saucer  belonging  to  the 
cup  thus  sacrificed  by  Mr.  Scott  to  his  indignation  against 
one  who  had  redeemed  his  own  life  and  fortune  by  turn- 
ing king's  evidence  against  one  of  Prince  Charles  Stuart's 
adherents, — was  carefully  preserved  by  his  son,  and  hung 
up  in  his  first  study,  or  "den,"  under  a  little  print  of 
Prince  Charlie.  This  anecdote  brings  before  the  mind 
very  vividly  the  character  of  Sir  Walter's  parents.  The 
eager  curiosity  of  the  active-minded  woman,  whom  "  the 
honourable  Mrs.  Ogilvie "  had  been  able  to  keep  upright 
in  her  chair  for  life,  but  not  to  cure  of  the  desire  to 
unravel  the  little  mysteries  of  which  she  had  a  passing 
glimpse;  the  grave  formality  of  the  husband,  fretting 
under  his  wife's  personal  attention  to  a  dishonoured  man, 
and  making  her  pay  the  penalty  by  dashing  to  pieces  the 
cup  which  the  king's  evidence  had  used, — again,  the 
visitor  himself,  perfectly  conscious  no  doubt  that  the 
Hanoverian  lawyer  held  him  in  utter  scorn  for  his  faith- 
lessness and  cowardice,  and  reluctant,  nevertheless,  to 
reject  the  courtesy  of  the  wife,  though  he  could  not  get 
anything  but  cold  legal  advice  from  the  husband: — all 
these  are  figures  which  must  have  acted  on  the  youthful 
imagination  of  the  poet  with  singular  vivacity,  and  shaped 
themselves  in  a  hundred  changing  turns  of  the  historical 
kaleidoscope  which  was  always  before  his  mind's  eye,  as 
he  mused  upon  that  past  which  he  was  to  restore  for  us 
with  almost  more  than  its  original  freshness  of  life.  With 
such  scenes  touching  even  his  own  home,  Scott  must 
have  been  constantly  taught  to  balance  in  his  own  mind, 
the  more  romantic,  against  the  more  sober  and  rational 
considerations,  which  had  so  recently  divided  house 
against  house,  even  in  the  same  family  and  clan.  That  the 
stern  Calvinistic  lawyer  should  have  retained  so  much  of 


u]        ANCKBTBY,  PABENTAGB,  AND  CHILDHOOD.          fl 

his  grandfather  Beardie's  respect  for  the  adherents  of  the 
exiled  house  of  Stuart,  must  in  itself  have  struck  the  boy 
as  even  more  remarkable  than  the  passionate  loyalty  of  the 
Stuarts'  professed  partisans,  and  have  lent  a  new  sanction 
to  the  romantic  drift  of  his  mother's  old  traditions,  and 
one  to  which  they  must  have  been  indebted  for  a  great 
part  of  their  fascination. 

Walter  Scott,  the  ninth  of  twelve  children,  of  whom 
the  first  six  died  in  early  childhood,  was  born  in  Edin- 
burgh, on  the  15th  of  August,  1771.  Of  the  six  later- 
born  children,  all  but  one  were  boys,  and  the  one  sister 
was  a  somewhat  querulous  invalid,  whom  he  seems  to  have 
pitied  almost  more  than  he  loved.  At  the  age  of  eighteen 
months  the  boy  had  a  teething-fever,  ending  in  a  life-long 
lameness ;  and  this  was  the  reason  why  the  child  was  sent 
to  reside  with  his  grandfather — the  speculative  grand- 
father, who  had  doubled  his  capital  by  buying  a  racehorse 
instead  of  sheep — at  Sandy-Knowe,  near  the  ruined  tower 
of  Smailholm,  celebrated  afterwards  in  his  ballad  of  The 
Eve  of  St.  John,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  some  fine  crags. 
To  these  crags  the  housemaid  sent  from  Edinburgh  to 
look  after  him,  used  to  carry  him  up,  with  a  design 
(which  she  confessed  to  the  housekeeper) — due,  of 
course,  to  incipient  insanity — of  murdering  the  child 
there,  and  burying  him  in  the  moss.  Of  course  the  maid 
was  dismissed.  After  this  the  child  used  to  be  sent  out, 
when  the  weather  was  fine,  in  the  safer  charge  of  the 
shepherd,  who  would  often  lay  him  beside  the  sheep. 
Long  afterwards  Scott  told  Mr.  Skene,  during  an  excursion 
with  Turner,  the  great  painter,  who  was  drawing  his  illus- 
tration of  Smailholm  tower  for  one  of  Scott's  works,  that 
"the  habit  of  lying  on  the  turf  there  among  the  sheep  and 
the  lambs  had  given  his  mind  a  peculiar  tenderness  for 
B  2 


10  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

these  animals,  which  it  had  ever  since  retained."  Being 
forgotten  one  day  upon  the  knolls  when  a  thunderstorm 
came  on,  his  aunt  ran  out  to  bring  him  in,  and  found  him 
shouting,  "  Bonny  !  bonny  !"  at  every  flash  of  lightning. 
One  of  the  old  servants  at  Sandy-Knowe  spoke  of  the 
child  long  afterwards  as  "a  sweet-tempered  bairn,  a 
darling  with  all  about  the  house,"  and  certainly  the 
miniature  taken  of  him  in  his  seventh  year  confirms  the 
impression  thus  given.  It  is  sweet-tempered  above  every- 
thing, and  only  the  long  upper  lip  and  large  mouth, 
derived  from  his  ancestress,  Meg  Murray,  convey  the  pro- 
mise of  the  power  which  was  in  him.  Of  course  the  high, 
almost  conical  forehead,  which  gained  him  in  his  later 
days  from  his  comrades  at  the  bar  the  name  of  "Old 
Peveril,"  in  allusion  to  "the  peak  "  which  they  saw  towering 
high  above  the  heads  of  other  men  as  he  approached,  is  not 
so  much  marked  beneath  the  childish  locks  of  this  minia- 
ture as  it  was  in  later  life ;  and  the  massive,  and,  in 
repose,  certainly  heavy  face  of  his  maturity,  which  con- 
veyed the  impression  of  the  great  bulk  of  his  character,  is 
still  quite  invisible  under  the  sunny  ripple  of  childish 
earnestness  and  gaiety.  Scott's  hair  in  childhood  was 
light  chestnut,  which  turned  to  nut  brown  in  youth.  His 
eyebrows  were  bushy,  for  we  find  mention  made  of  them  as 
a  "  pent-house."  His  eyes  were  always  light  blue.  They 
had  in  them  a  capacity,  on  the  one  hand,  for  enthu- 
siasm, sunny  brightness,  and  even  hare-brained  humour, 
and  on  the  other  for  expressing  determined  resolve  and 
kindly  irony,  which  gave  great  range  of  expression  to 
the  face.  There  are  plenty  of  materials  for  judging  what 
sort  of  a  boy  Scott  was.  In  spite  of  his  lameness,  he  early 
taught  himself  to  clamber  about  with  an  agility  that  few 
children  could  have  surpassed,  and  to  sit  his  first  pony — a 


I.]        ANCESTBY,  PARENTAGE,  AND  CHILDHOOD.        11 

little  Shetland,  not  bigger  than  a  large  Newfoundland 
dog,  which  used  to  come  into  the  house  to  be  fed  by  him — 
even  in  gallops  on  very  rough  ground.  He  became  very 
early  a  declaimer.  Having  learned  the  ballad  of  Hardy 
Knute,  he  shouted  it  forth  with  such  pertinacious  enthu- 
siasm that  the  clergyman  of  his  grandfather's  parish 
complained  that  he  "  might  as  well  speak  in  a  cannon's 
mouth  as  where  that  child  was."  At  six  years  of  age  Mrs. 
Cockburn  described  him  as  the  most  astounding  genius 
of  a  boy,  she  ever  saw.  "  He  was  reading  a  poem  to  his 
mother  when  I  went  in.  I  made  him  read  on:  it  was 
the  description  of  a  shipwreck.  His  passion  rose  with  the 
storm.  '  There's  the  mast  gone,'  says  he ;  '  crash  it  goes  ; 
they  will  all  perish.'  After  his  agitation  he  turns  to  me, 
' That  is  too  melancholy,'  says  he  ;  'I  had  better  read 
you  something  more  amusing.' "  And  after  the  call,  he 
told  his  aunt  he  liked  Mrs.  Cockburn,  for  "  she  was  a 
virtuoso  like  himself."  "  Dear  Walter,"  says  Aunt  Jenny, 
"  what  is  a  virtuoso  ?  "  "  Don't  ye  know  1  Why,  it's  one 
who  wishes  and  will  know  everything."  This  last  scene 
took  place  in  his  father's  house  in  Edinburgh ;  but  Scott's 
life  at  Sandy-Knowe,  including  even  the  old  minister,  Dr. 
Duncan,  who  so  bitterly  complained  of  the  boy's  ballad- 
spouting,  is  painted  for  us,  as  everybody  knows,  in  the 
picture  of  his  infancy  given  in  the  introduction  to  the 
third  canto  of  Marmion : — 

"  It  was  a  barren  scene  and  wild, 
Where  naked  cliffs  were  rudely  piled : 
But  ever  and  anon  between 
Lay  velvet  tufts  of  loveliest  green  j 
And  well  the  lonely  infant  knew 
Becessos  where  the  wall-flower  grew, 
And  honeysuckle  loved  to  crawl 
Up  tho  low  crag  and  ruin'd  wall. 


12  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

I  deem'd  such  nooks  the  sweetest  shade 

The  sun  in  all  its  round  survey'd  ; 

And  still  I  thought  that  shatter'd  tower 

The  mightiest  work  of  human  power ; 

And  marvell'd  as  the  aged  hind 

With  some  strange  tale  bewitch'd  my  mind, 

Of  forayers,  who,  with  headlong  force, 

Down  from  that  strength  had  spurr'd  their  horse 

Their  southern  rapine  to  renew, 

Far  in  the  distant  Cheviots  blue, 

And,  home  returning,  fill'd  the  hall 

With  revel,  wassail-rout,  and  brawl. 

Methought  that  still  with  trump  and  clang 

The  gateway's  broken  arches  rang ; 

Methoaght  grim  features,  seam'd  with  scars, 

Glared  through  the  window's  rusty  bars  ; 

And  ever,  by  the  winter  hearth, 

Old  tales  I  heard  of  woe  or  mirth, 

Of  lovers'  slights,  of  ladies'  charms, 

Of  witches'  spells,  of  warriors'  arms, 

Of  patriot  battles,  won  of  old 

By  Wallace  wight  and  Bruce  the  bold  j 

Of  later  fields  of  feud  and  fight, 

When,  pouring  from  their  Highland  height, 

The  Scottish  clans,  in  headlong  sway, 

Had  swept  the  scarlet  ranks  away. 

While,  stretch'd  at  length  upon  the  floor, 

Again  I  fought  each  combat  o'er, 

Pebbles  and  shells  in  order  laid, 

The  mimic  ranks  of  war  display'd ; 

And  onward  still  the  Scottish  lion  bare, 

And  still  the  scattered  Southron  fled  before. 

Still,  with  vain  fondness,  could  I  trace 

Anew  each  kind  familiar  face 

That  brighten'd  at  our  evening  fire! 

From  the  thatch'd  mansion's  grey-hair*d  sire 

Wise  without  learning,  plain  and  good, 

And  sprung  of  Scotland's  gentler  blood  ; 

Whose  eye  in  age,  quick,  clear,  and  keen, 

Show'd  what  in  youth  its  glance  had  been.; 

Whose  doom  discording  neighbours  sought* 

Content  with  equity  unbought ; 


ij         ANCESTRY,  PARENTAGE,  AND  CHILDHOOD.        M 

To  him  the  venerable  priest, 
Our  frequent  and  familiar  guest, 
Whose  life  and  manners  well  could  paint 
Alike  the  student  and  the  saint ; 
Alas !  whose  speech  too  oft  I  broke 
With  gambol  rude  and  timeless  joke  j 
For  I  was  wayward,  bold,  and  wild, 
A  self-will'd  imp,  a  grandame's  child  j 
But,  half  a  plague  and  half  a  jest, 
Was  still  endured,  beloved,  caress'd." 

A  picture  this  of  a  child  of  great  spirit,  though  with 
that  spirit  was  combined  an  active  and  subduing  sweet- 
ness which  could  often  conquer,  as  by  a  sudden  spell, 
those  whom  the  boy  loved.  Towards  those,  however,  whom 
he  did  not  love  he  could  be  vindictive.  His  relative, 
the  laird  of  Raeburn,  on  one  occasion  wrung  the  neck  of 
a  pet  starling,  which  the  child  had  partly  tamed.  "  I 
flew  at  his  throat  like  a  wild-cat,"  he  said,  in  recalling 
the  circumstance,  fifty  years  later,  in  his  journal  on 
occasion  of  the  old  laird's  death ;  "  and  was  torn  from 
him  with  no  little  difficulty."  And,  judging  from  this 
journal,  I  doubt  whether  he  had  ever  really  forgiven  the 
laird  of  Eaeburn.  Towards  those  whom  he  loved  but 
had  offended,  his  manner  was  very  different.  "I  seldom," 
said  one  of  his  tutors,  Mr.  Mitchell,  "  had  occasion  all  the 
time  I  was  in  the  family  to  find  fault  with  him,  even  for 
trifles,  and  only  once  to  threaten  serious  castigation,  of 
which  he  was  no  sooner  aware,  than  he  suddenly  sprang 
up,  threw  his  arms  about  my  neck  and  kissed  me."  And 
the  quaint  old  gentleman  adds  this  commentary : — "  By 
auch  genero  is  and  noble  conduct  my  displeasure  was  in  a 
moment  converted  into  esteem  and  admiration ;  my  soul 
melted  into  tenderness,  and  I  was  ready  to  mingle  my 
tears  with  his."  This  spontaneous  and  fascinating  sweet 


14  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAB. 

ness  of  his  childhood  was  naturally  overshadowed  to  some 
extent  in  later  life  by  Scott's  masculine  and  proud  cha- 
racter, but  it  was  always  in  him.  And  there  was 
much  of  true  character  in  the  child  behind  this  sweet- 
ness. He  had  wonderful  self-command,  and  a  peremp- 
tory kind  of  good  sense,  even  in  his  infancy.  While  yet 
a  child  under  six  years  of  age,  hearing  one  of  the  servants 
beginning  to  tell  a  ghost-story  to  another,  and  well  know- 
ing that  if  he  listened,  it  would  scare  away  his  night's 
rest,  he  acted  for  himself  with  all  the  promptness  of  an 
elder  person  acting  for  him,  and,  in  spite  of  the  fasci- 
nation of  the  subject,  resolutely  muffled  his  head  in  the 
bed-clothes  and  refused  to  hear  the  tale.  His  sagacity 
in  judging  of  the  character  of  others  was  shown,  too,  even 
as  a  school-boy ;  and  once  it  led  him  to  take  an  advan- 
tage which  caused  him  many  compunctions  in  after-life, 
whenever  he  recalled  his  skilful  puerile  tactics.  On  one 
occasion — I  tell  the  story  as  he  himself  rehearsed  it  to 
Samuel  Rogers,  almost  at  the  end  of  his  life,  after  hia 
attack  of  apoplexy,  and  just  before  leaving  England 
for  Italy  in  the  hopeless  quest  of  health — he  had  long 
desired  to  get  above  a  school-fellow  in  his  class,  who 
defied  all  his  efforts,  till  Scott  noticed  that  whenever  a 
question  was  asked  of  his  rival,  the  lad's  fingers  grasped 
a  particular  button  on  his  waistcoat,  while  his  mind  went 
in  search  of  the  answer.  Scott  accordingly  anticipated 
that  if  he  could  remove  this  button,  the  boy  would  be 
thrown  out,  and  so  it  proved.  The  button  was  cut  off, 
and  the  next  time  the  lad  was  questioned,  his  fingers 
being  unable  to  find  the  button,  and  his  eyes  going  in 
perplexed  search  after  his  fingers,  he  stood  confounded, 
and  Scott  mastered  by  strategy  the  place  which  he  could 
not  gain  by  mere  industry.  "  Often  in  after-life,"  said 


I.]         ANCESTRY,  PARENTAGE,  AND  CHILDHOOD.        15 

Scott,  in  narrating  the  manoeuvre  to  Rogers,  "has  the  sight 
of  him  smote  mo  as  I  passed  by  him ;  and  often  have  I 
resolved  to  make  him  some  reparation,  but  it  ended  in 
good  resolutions.  Though  I  never  renewed  my  acquaint- 
ance with  him,  I  often  saw  him,  for  he  filled  some  inferior 
office  in  one  of  the  courts  of  law  at  Edinburgh.  Poor 
fellow !  I  believe  he  is  dead ;  he  took  early  to  drinking."1 
Scott's  school  reputation  was  one  of  irregular  ability  ;  he 
"  glanced  like  a  meteor  from  one  end  of  the  class  to  the 
other,"  and  received  more  praise  for  his  interpretation  of 
the  spirit  of  his  authors  than  for  his  knowledge  of  their 
language.  Out  of  school  his  fame  stood  higher.  He 
extemporized  innumerable  stories  to  which  his  school- 
fellows delighted  to  listen  ;  and,  in  spite  of  his  lameness, 
he  was  always  in  the  thick  of  the  "  bickers,"  or  street 
fights  with  the  boys  of  the  town,  and  renowned  for  his 
boldness  in  climbing  the  "  kittle  nine  stanes  "  which  are 
"  projected  high  in  air  from  the  precipitous  black  granite 
of  the  Castle-rock."  At  home  he  was  much  bullied  by  his 
elder  brother  Eobert,  a  lively  lad,  not  without  some  powers 
of  verse-making,  who  went  into  the  navy,  then  in  an 
unlucky  moment  passed  into  the  merchant  service  of  the 
East  India  Company,  and  so  lost  the  chance  of  distin- 
guishing himself  in  the  great  naval  campaigns  of  Kelson. 
Perhaps  Scott  would  have  been  all  the  better  for  a  sister 
a  little  closer  to  him  than  Anne — sickly  and  fanciful — 
appears  ever  to  have  been.  The  masculine  side  of  life 
appears  to  predominate  a  little  too  much  in  his  school 
and  college  days,  and  he  had  such  vast  energy,  vitality, 
and  pride,  that  his  life  at  this  time  would  have  borne  a 
little  taming  under  the  influence  of  a  sister  thoroughly 

1  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  i  128. 


16  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAT. 

congenial  to  him.  In  relation  to  his  studies  he  was 
wilful,  though  not  perhaps  perverse.  He  steadily  de- 
clined, for  instance,  to  learn  Greek,  though  he  mastered 
Latin  pretty  fairly.  After  a  time  spent  at  the  High 
School,  Edinburgh,  Scott  was  sent  to  a  school  at  Kelso, 
where  his  master  made  a  friend  and  companion  of  him, 
and  so  poured  into  him  a  certain  amount  of  Latin  scholar- 
ship which  he  would  never  otherwise  have  obtained.  I 
need  hardly  add  that  as  a  hoy  Scott  was,  so  far  as  a  hoy 
could  be,  a  Tory — a  worshipper  of  the  past,  and  a  great 
Conservative  of  any  remnant  of  the  past  which  reformers 
wished  to  get  rid  of.  In  the  autobiographical  fragment 
of  1808,  he  says,  in  relation  to  these  school-days,  "I, 
with  my  head  on  fire  for  chivalry,  was  a  Cavalier ;  my 
friend  was  a  Roundhead ;  I  was  a  Tory,  and  he  was  a 
Whig;  I  hated  Presbyterians,  and  admired  Montrose 
with  his  victorious  Highlanders;  he  liked  the  Presby- 
terian Ulysses,  the  deep  and  politic  Argyle ;  so  that  we 
never  wanted  subjects  of  dispute,  but  our  disputes  were 
always  amicable."  And  he  adds  candidly  enough :  "  In 
all  these  tenets  there  was  no  real  conviction  on  my  part, 
arising  out  of  acquaintance  with  the  views  or  principles 

of  either  party I  took  up  politics  at  that 

period,  as  King  Charles  II.  did  his  religion,  from  an  idea 
that  the  Cavalier  creed  was  the  more  gentlemanlike  per- 
suasion of  the  two."  And  the  uniformly  amicable  character 
of  these  controversies  between  the  young  people,  itself 
shows  how  much  more  they  were  controversies  of  the 
imagination  than  of  faith.  I  doubt  whether  Scott's  con- 
victions on  the  issues  of  the  Past  were  ever  very  much 
more  decided  than  they  were  during  his  boyhood ;  though 
undoubtedly  he  learned  to  understand  much  more  pro- 
foundly what  was  really  held  bv  the  ablest  men  on  both 


I.}        ANCESTRY,  PARENTAGE,  AND  CHILDHOOD.        >7 

sides  of  these  disputed  issues.  The  result,  however,  was, 
I  think,  that  while  he  entered  better  and  better  into  both 
sides  as  life  went  on,  he  never  adopted  either  with  any 
earnestness  of  conviction,  being  content  to  admit,  even 
to  himself,  that  while  his  feelings  leaned  in  one  direction, 
his  reason  pointed  decidedly  in  the  other ;  and  holding 
that  it  was  hardly  needful  to  identify  himself  positively 
with  either  As  regarded  the  present,  however,  feeling 
always  carried  the  day.  Scott  was  a  Tory  all  his  life. 


CHAPTER  IT. 

YOUTH— CHOICE   OP   A   PROFESSION. 

As  SCOTT  grew  up,  entered  the  classes  of  the  college,  and 
began  his  legal  studies,  first  as  apprentice  to  his  father, 
and  then  in  the  law  classes  of  the  University,  he  became 
noticeable  to  all  his  friends  for  his  gigantic  memory, — the 
rich  stores  of  romantic  material  with  which  it  was  loaded, 
— his  giant  feats  of  industry  for  any  cherished  purpose, — 
his  delight  in  adventure  and  in  all  athletic  enterprises, — 
his  great  enjoyment  of  youthful  "  rows,"  so  long  as  they 
did  not  divide  the  knot  of  friends  to  which  he  belonged, 
and  his  skill  in  peacemaking  amongst  his  own  set.  During 
his  apprenticeship  his  only  means  of  increasing  his  slender 
allowance  with  funds  which  he  could  devote  to  his 
favourite  studies,  was  to  earn  money  by  copying,  and  he 
tells  us  himself  that  he  remembered  writing  "120  folio 
pages  with  no  interval  either  for  food  or  rest,"  fourteen 
or  fifteen  hours'  very  hard  work  at  the  very  least, — 
expressly  for  this  purpose. 

In  the  second  year  of  Scott's  apprenticeship,  at  about 
the  age  of  sixteen,  he  had  an  attack  of  haemorrhage, 
no  recurrence  cf  which  took  place  for  some  forty 
years,  but  which  was  then  the  beginning  of  the  end. 
During  this  illness  silence  was  absolutely  imposed 
ujxm  him, — two  old  ladies  putting  their  fingers  OB 


ii.]  YOUTH— CHOICE  OF  A  PEOFESSION.  19 

their  lips  whenever  he  offered  to  speak.  It  was  at  thia 
time  that  the  lad  began  his  study  of  the  scenic  side  of 
history,  and  especially  of  campaigns,  which  he  illustrated 
for  himself  by  the  arrangement  of  shells,  seeds,  and 
pebbles,  so  as  to  represent  encountering  armies,  in  the 
manner  referred  to  (and  referred  to  apparently  in  anticipa- 
tion of  a  later  stage  of  his  life  than  that  he  was  then  speak* 
ing  of)  in  the  passage  from  the  introduction  to  the  third 
canto  of  Marmion  which  I  have  already  given.  He  also 
managed  so  to  arrange  the  looking-glasses  in  his  room  as 
to  see  the  troops  march  out  to  exercise  in  the  meadows, 
as  he  lay  in  bed.  His  reading  was  almost  all  in  the 
direction  of  military  exploit,  or  romance  and  me- 
diaeval legend  and  the  later  border  songs  of  his  own 
country.  He  learned  Italian  and  read  Ariosto.  Later 
he  learned  Spanish  and  devoured  Cervantes,  whose 
"  novelets,"  he  said,  "  first  inspired  him  with  the  ambition 
to  excel  in  fiction;"  and  all  that  he  read  and  admired 
he  remembered.  Scott  used  to  illustrate  the  capricious 
affinity  of  his  own  memory  for  what  suited  it,  and  its 
complete  rejection  of  what  did  not,  by  old  Beattie  of 
Meikledale's  answer  to  a  Scotch  divine,  who  complimented 
him  on  the  strength  of  his  memory.  "  No,  sir,"  said  the 
old  Borderer,  "  I  have  no  command  of  my  memory.  It 
only  retains  what  hits  my  fancy;  and  probably,  sir, 
if  you  were  to  preach  to  me  for  two  hours,  I  would  not 
be  able,  when  you  finished,  to  remember  a  word  you  had 
been  saying."  Such  a  memory,  when  it  belongs  to  a  man 
of  genius,  is  really  a  sieve  of  the  most  valuable  kind. 
It  sifts  away  what  is  foreign  and  alien  to  his  genius,  and 
assimilates  what  is  suited  to  it.  In  his  very  last  days, 
when  he  was  visiting  Italy  for  the  first  time,  Scott  delighted 
in  Malta,  for  it  recalled  to  him  Vertot's  Kniohts  of  Malta, 


20  SIB  WALTEA  SCOTT.  [OTAP. 

and  much  other  mediaeval  story  which  ho  had  pored  over 
in  his  youth.  But  when  his  friends  d  jscanted  to  him  at 
Pozzuoli  on  the  Thermae — commonly  called  the  Temple 
of  Serapis — among  the  ruins  of  which  he  stood,  he  only 
remarked  that  he  would  believe  whatever  he  was  told, 
"for  many  of  his  friends,  and  particularly  Mr.  Morritt, 
had  frequently  tried  to  drive  classical  antiquities,  as  they 
are  called,  into  his  head,  but  they  had  always  found  his 
skull  too  thick."  Was  it  not  perhaps  some  deep  literary 
instinct,  like  that  here  indicated,  which  made  him,  as  a 
lad,  refuse  so  steadily  to  learn  Greek,  and  try  to  prove  to 
his  indignant  professor  that  Ariosto  was  superior  to 
Homer  1  Scott  afterwards  deeply  regretted  this  neglect 
of  Greek  ;  but  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  his  regret  was 
misplaced.  Greek  literature  would  have  brought  before 
his  mind  standards  of  poetry  and  art  which  could  not 
but  have  both  deeply  impressed  and  greatly  daunted  an 
intellect  of  so  much  power ;  I  say  both  impressed  and 
daunted,  because  I  believe  that  Scott  himself  would  never 
have  succeeded  in  studies  of  a  classical  kind,  while  he 
might — like  Goethe  perhaps — have  been  either  misled,  by 
admiration  for  that  school,  into  attempting  what  was  not 
adapted  to  his  genius,  or  else  disheartened  in  the  work 
for  which  his  character  and  ancestry  really  fitted  him. 
It  has  been  said  that  there  is  a  real  affinity  between  Scott 
and  Homer.  But  the  long  and  refluent  music  of  Homer, 
once  naturalized  in  his  mind,  would  have  discontented 
him  with  that  quick,  sharp,  metrical  tramp  of  his  own  moss- 
troopers, to  which  alone  his  genius  as  a  joet  was  per- 
fectly suited. 

It  might  be  supposed  that  with  these  romantic  tastes, 
Scott  could  scarcely  have  made  much  of  a  lawyer,  though 
the  inference  would,  I  believe,  be  quite  mistaken.  Hu 


ii.]  YOUTH— CHOICE  OF  A  PROFESSION.  21 

father,  however,  reproached  him  with  being  better  fitted  for 
a  pedlar  than  a  lawyer, — so  persistently  did  he  trudge  over 
all  the  neighbouring  counties  in  search  of  the  beauties 
of  nature  and  the  historic  associations  of  battle,  siege,  or 
legend.  On  one  occasion  when,  with  their  last  penny  spent, 
Scott  and  one  of  his  companions  had  returned  to  Edin- 
burgh, living  during  their  last  day  on  drinks  of  milk 
offered  by  generous  peasant-women,  and  the  hips  and  haws 
on  the  hedges,  he  remarked  to  his  father  how  much  he 
had  wished  for  George  Primrose's  power  of  playing  on  the 
flute  in  order  to  earn  a  meal  by  the  way,  old  Mr.  Scott, 
catching  grumpily  at  the  idea,  replied, "  I  greatly  doubt,  sir, 
you  were  born  for  nae  better  then  a  gangrel  scrape-gut," — 
a  speech  which  very  probably  suggested  his  son's  concep- 
tion of  Darsie  Latimer's  adventures  with  the  blind  fiddler, 
"  Wandering  Willie,"  in  Redgauntlet.  And,  it  is  true  that 
these  were  the  days  of  mental  and  moral  fermentation, 
what  was  called  in  Germany  the  Stunn-und-Drang,  the 
"  fret-and-fury "  period  of  Scott's  life,  so  far  as  one  so 
mellow  and  genial  in  temper  ever  passed  through  a  period 
of  fret  and  fury  at  alL  In  other  words  these  were  the  days 
of  rapid  motion,  of  walks  of  thirty  miles  a  day  which 
the  lame  lad  yet  found  no  fatigue  to  him  ;  of  mad  enter- 
prises, scrapes  and  drinking-bouts,  in  one  of  which  Scott 
was  half  persuaded  by  his  friends  that  he  actually  sang 
a  song  for  the  only  time  in  his  life.  But  even  in  these 
days  of  youthful  sociability,  with  companions  of  his 
own  age,  Scott  was  always  himself,  and  his  imperious  will 
often  asserted  itself.  Writing  of  this  time,  some  thirty- 
five  years  or  so  later,  he  said,  "  When  I  was  a  boy,  and 
on  foot  expeditions,  as  we  had  many,  no  creature  could  be 
so  indifferent  which  way  our  course  was  directed,  and  T 
acquiesced  in  what  anr  one  proposed ;  but  if  I  WM  once 


23  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP 

driven  to  make  a  choice,  and  felt  piqued  in  honour  to 
maintain  my  proposition,  I  have  broken  off  from  the 
whole  party,  rather  than  yield  to  any  one."  No  doubt, 
too,  in  that  day  of  what  he  himself  described  as  "  the 
silly  smart  fancies  that  ran  in  my  brain  like  the  bubbles 
in  a  glass  of  champagne,  as  brilliant  to  my  thinking,  as 
intoxicating,  as  evanescent,"  solitude  was  no  real  depriva- 
tion to  him ;  and  one  can  easily  imagine  him  marching  off 
on  his  solitary  way  after  a  dispute  with  his  companions, 
reciting  to  himself  old  songs  or  ballads,  with  that 
"  noticeable  but  altogether  indescribable  play  of  the  upper 
lip,"  which  Mr.  Lockhart  thinks  suggested  to  one  of 
Scott's  most  intimate  friends,  on  his  first  acquaintance 
with  him,  the  grotesque  notion  that  he  had  been  "a 
hautboy-player."  This  was  the  first  impression  formed 
of  Scott  by  William  Clerk,  one  of  his  earliest  and  life- 
long friends.  It  greatly  amused  Scott,  who  not  only  had 
never  played  on  any  instrument  in  his  life,  but  could 
hardly  make  shift  to  join  in  the  chorus  of  a  popular  song 
without  marring  its  effect;  but  perhaps  the  impression 
suggested  was  not  so  very  far  astray  after  alL  Looking 
to  the  poetic  side  of  his  character,  the  trumpet  certainly 
would  have  been  the  instrument  that  would  have  best 
symbolized  the  spirit  both  of  Scott's  thought  and  of  his 
verses.  Mr.  Lockhart  himself,  in  summing  up  his  impres- 
sions of  Sir  Walter,  quotes  as  the  most  expressive  of  his 
lines: — 

"  Sound,  sound  the  clarion!  fill  the  fife  I 

To  all  the  sensual  world  proclaim. 
One  crowded  hoar  of  glorious  life 
Is  worth  a  world  without  a  name.*" 

And  undoubtedly  this  gives  us  the  key-note  of  Scott's 
personal  life  as  well  as  of  tis  poetic  power.  Above  every- 


IT.]  YOUTH— CHOICE  OP  A  PEOPESSION.  23 

tiling  he  was  high-spirited,  a  man  of  noble,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  of  martial  feelings.  Sir  Francis  Doyle  speaks  very 
justly  of  Sir  Walter  as  "  among  English  singers  the 
undoubted  inheritor  of  that  trumpet-note,  which,  under 
the  breath  of  Homer,  has  made  the  wrath  of  Achilles 
immortal ;"  and  I  do  not  doubt  that  there  was  something 
in  Scott's  face,  and  especially  in  the  expression  of  hia 
mouth,  to  suggest  this  even  to  his  early  college  com- 
panions. Unfortunately,  however,  even  "one  crowded 
hour  of  glorious  life  "  may  sometimes  have  a  "  sensual n 
inspiration,  and  in  these  days  of  youthful  adventure,  too 
many  such  hours  seem  to  have  owed  their  inspiration 
to  the  Scottish  peasant's  chief  bane,  the  Highland  whisky. 
In  his  eager  search  after  the  old  ballads  of  the  Border, 
Scott  had  many  a  blithe  adventure,  which  ended  only  too 
often  in  a  carouse.  It  was  soon  after  this  time  that  he  first 
began  those  raids  into  Liddesdale,  of  which  all  the  world 
has  enjoyed  the  records  in  the  sketches — embodied  subse- 
quently in  Guy  Mannering — of  Dandie  Dinmont,  his  pony 
Dumple,  and  the  various  Peppers  and  Mustards  from 
whose  breed  there  were  afterwards  introduced  into  Scott's 
own  family,  generations  of  terriers,  always  named,  as  Sir 
Walter  expressed  it,  after  "  the  cruet."  I  must  quote  the 
now  classic  record  of  those  youthful  escapades : — 

"  Eh  me,"  said  Mr.  Shortreed,  his  companion  in  all  these 
Liddesdale  raids,  "  sic  an  endless  fund  of  humour  and  drollery 
as  he  had  then  wi'  him.  Never  ten  yards  but  we  were  either 
laughing  or  roaring  and  singing.  Wherever  we  stopped,  how 
brawlie  he  suited  himsel'  to  everybody !  He  aye  did  as  the 
lave  did  ;  never  made  himsel'  the  great  man  or  took  ony  airs 
in  the  company.  I've  seen  him  in  a'  moods  in  these  jaunts, 
grave  and  gay,  daft  and  serious,  sober  and  drunk — (this,  how- 
ever, even  in  our  wildest  rambles,  was  but  rare) — but  drunk 
or  sober  he  was  «ve  the  gentleman.  He  looked  excessively 


24  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT. 

heavy  a*d  stupid  when  he  was  fou,  but  he  was  never  ant  o' 
gude  humour." 

One  of  the  stories  of  that  time  will  illustrate  better 
the  wilder  days  of  Scott's  youth  than  any  comment : — 

"On  reaching  one  evening,"  says  Mr.  Lockhart,  some 
Charlieshope  or  other  (I  forget  the  name)  among  those  wil- 
dernesses, they  found  a  kindly  reception  as  usual :  hut  to 
their  agreeable  surprise,  after  some  days  of  hard  living,  a 
measured  and  orderly  hospitality  as  respected  liquor.  Soon 
after  supper,  at  which  a  bottle  of  elderberry  wine  alone  had 
been  produced,  a  young  student  of  divinity  who  happened  to 
be  in  the  house  was  called  upon  to  take  the  '  big  ha'  Bible,'  in 
the  good  old  fashion  of  Burns'  Saturday  Night :  and  some 
progress  had  been  already  made  in  the  service,  when  the  good 
man  of  the  farm,  whose  '  tendency,'  as  Mr.  Mitchell  says, 
1  was  soporific,'  scandalized  his  wife  and  the  dominie  by  start- 
ing suddenly  from  his  knees,  and  rubbing  his  eyes,  with  a 

stentorian  exclamation  of '  By !  here's  the  keg  at  last ! ' 

and  in  tumbled,  as  he  spake  the  word,  a  couple  of  sturdy 
herdsmen,  whom,  on  hearing,  a  day  before,  of  the  advocate's 
approaching  visit,  he  had  despatched  to  a  certain  smuggler's 
haunt  at  some  considerable  distance  in  quest  of  a  supply  of 
run  brandy  from  the  Solway  frith.  The  pious  '  exercise '  of 
the  household  was  hopelessly  interrupted.  With  a  thousand 
apologies  for  his  hitherto  shabby  entertainment,  this  jolly 
Elliot  or  Armstrong  had  the  welcome  Teeg  mounted  on  the 
table  without  a  moment's  delay,  and  gentle  and  simple,  not 
forgetting  the  dominie,  continued  carousing  about  it  until 
daylight  streamed  in  upon  the  party.  Sir  "Walter  Scott 
seldom  failed,  when  I  saw  him  in  company  with  his  Liddes- 
dale  companions,  to  mimic  with  infinite  humour  the  sudden 
outburst  of  his  old  host  on  hearing  the  clatter  of  horses' feet, 
which  he  knew  to  indicate  the  arrival  of  the  keg,  the  con- 
sternation of  the  dame,  and  the  rueful  despair  with  which 
the  young  clergyman  closed  the  book." ' 

I  Lookhart's  Lift  of  Scott,  i.  269-71. 


YOUTH— CHOICE  OF  A  PROFESSION.  26 

No  wonder  old  Mr.  Scott  felt  some  doubt  of  his  son's 
success  at  the  bar,  and  thought  him  more  fitted  in  many 
respects  for  a  "  gangrel  scrape-gut."1 

In  spite  of  all  this  love  of  excitement,  Scott  became  a 
sound  lawyer,  and  might  have  been  a  great  lawyer,  had  not 
his  pride  of  character,  the  impatience  of  his  genius,  and 
the  stir  of  his  imagination  rendered  him  indisposed  to 
wait  and  slave  in  the  precise  manner  which  the  preposses- 
sions of  solicitors  appoint. 

For  Scott's  passion  for  romantic  literature  was  not  at 
all  the  sort  of  thing  which  we  ordinarily  mean  by  boys' 
or  girls'  love  of  romance.  No  amount  of  drudgery  or 
labour  deterred  Scott  from  any  undertaking  on  the  prose- 
cution of  which  he  was  bent.  He  was  quite  the  reverse, 
indeed,  of  what  is  usually  meant  by  sentimental,  either  in 
his  manners  or  his  literary  interests.  As  regards  the 
history  of  his  own  country  he  was  no  mean  antiquarian. 
Indeed  he  cared  for  the  mustiest  antiquarian  researches— 
of  the  mediaeval  kind — so  much,  that  in  the  depth  of  hia 
troubles  he  speaks  of  a  talk  with  a  Scotch  antiquary  and 
herald  as  one  of  the  things  which  soothed  him  most. 
"I  do  not  know  anything  which  relieves  the  mind  so 
much  from  the  sullens  as  trifling  discussions  about  anti- 
quarian old  womanries.  It  is  like  knitting  a  stocking, 
diverting  the  mind  without  occupying  it."1  Thus  his 
.Dve  of  romantic  literature  was  as  far  as  possible  from  that  of 
a  mind  which  only  feeds  on  romantic  excitements ;  rather 
was  it  that  of  one  who  was  so  moulded  by  the  transmitted 
and  acquired  love  of  feudal  institutions  with  all  their  inci- 
dents, that  he  could  not  take  any  deep  interest  in  any  other 

1  Lookhart's  Life  of  Beott,  i.  206. 
»  Lookhart's  Life  of  Beott,  ix.  221. 
C     2*  3 


26  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP 

fashion  of  human  society.  Now  the  Scotch  law  was  full 
of  vestiges  and  records  of  that  period, — was  indeed  a  great 
standing  monument  of  it ;  and  in  numbers  of  his  writings 
Scott  shows  with  how  deep  an  interest  he  had  studied 
the  Scotch  law  from  this  point  of  view.  He  remarks  some- 
where that  it  was  natural  for  a  Scotchman  to  feel  a  strong 
attachment  to  the  principle  of  rank,  if  only  on  the  ground 
that  almost  any  Scotchman  might,  under  the  Scotch  law, 
turn  out  to  be  heir-in-tail  to  some  great  Scotch  title  or 
estate  by  the  death  of  intervening  relations.  And  the  law 
which  sometimes  caused  such  sudden  transformations,  had 
subsequently  a  true  interest  for  him  of  course  as  a  novel 
writer,  to  say  nothing  of  his  interest  in  it  as  an  antiqua- 
rian and  historian  who  loved  to  repeople  the  earth,  not 
merely  with  the  picturesque  groups  of  the  soldiers  and 
courts  of  the  past,  but  with  the  actors  in  all  the  various 
quaint  and  homely  transactions  and  puzzlements  which 
the  feudal  ages  had  brought  forth.  Hence  though,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  Scott  never  made  much  figure  as  an  advo- 
cate, he  became  a  very  respectable,  and  might  unquestion- 
ably have  become  a  very  great,  lawyer.  When  he  started 
at  the  bar,  however,  he  had  not  acquired  the  tact  to 
impress  an  ordinary  assembly.  In  one  case  which  he 
conducted  before  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Kirk  of 
Scotland,  when  defending  a  parish  minister  threatened 
with  deposition  for  drunkenness  and  unseemly  behaviour, 
he  certainly  missed  the  proper  tone, — first  receiving  a 
censure  for  the  freedom  of  his  manner  in  treating  the  alle- 
gations against  his  client,  and  then  so  far  collapsing  under 
the  rebuke  of  the  Moderator,  as  to  lose  the  force  and  ur- 
gency necessary  to  produce  an  effect  on  his  audience.  But 
these  were  merely  a  boy's  mishaps.  He  was  certainly  by 
no  means  a  Heaven-born  orator,  and  therefore  could  not 


n.]  YOUTH— CHOICE  OF  A  PROFESSION.  S? 

expect  to  spring  into  exceptionally  early  distinction,  ana 
the  only  true  reason  for  his  relative  failure  was  that  he 
was  so  full  of  literary  power,  and  so  proudly  impatient  of 
the  fetters  which  prudence  seemed  to  impose  on  his  extra- 
professional  proceedings,  that  he  never  gained  the  credit 
he  deserved  for  the  general  common  sense,  the  unwearied 
industry,  and  the  keen  appreciation  of  the  ins  and  outs  of 
legal  method,  which  might  have  raised  him  to  the  highest 
reputation  even  as  a  judge. 

All  readers  of  his  novels  know  how  Scott  delights  in 
the  humours  of  the  law.  By  way  of  illustration  take  the 
following  passage,  which  is  both  short  and  amusing,  in 
which  Saunders  Fairford — the  old  solicitor  painted  from 
Scott's  father  in  Redgauntlet — descants  on  the  law  of 
the  stirrup-cup.  "  It  was  decided  in  a  case  before  the 
town  bailies  of  Cupar  Angus,  when  Luckie  Simpson's  cow 
had  drunk  tip  Luckie  Jamieson's  browst  of  ale,  while  it 
stood  in  the  door  to  cool,  that  there  was  no  damage  to 
pay,  because  the  crummie  drank  without  sitting  down ; 
such  being  the  circumstance  constituting  a  Doch  an 
Dorroch,  which  is  a  standing  drink  for  which  no  reckoning 
is  paid."  I  do  not  believe  that  any  one  of  Scott's  con- 
temporaries had  greater  legal  abilities  than  he,  though,  as 
it  happened,  they  were  never  fairly  tried.  But  he  had 
both  the  pride  and  impatience  of  genius.  It  fretted  him 
to  feel  that  he  was  dependent  on  the  good  opinions  of 
solicitors,  and  that  they  who  -were  incapable  of  under- 
standing his  genius,  thought  the  less  instead  of  the  better 
of  him  as  an  advocate,  for  every  indication  which  he  gave 
of  that  genius.  Even  on  the  day  of  his  call  to  the  bar  he 
gave  expression  to  a  sort  of  humorous  foretaste  of  this 
impatience,  saying  to  William  Clerk,  who  had  been  called 
with  Mm,  as  he  mimicked  the  air  and  tone  of  a  Highland 


28  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAK. 

lass  waiting  at  the  Cross  of  Edinburgh  to  be  hired  for  the 
harvest,  "  We've  stood  here  an  hour  by  the  Tron,  hinny, 
and  deil  a  ane  has  speered  our  price."  Scott  continued  to 
practise  at  the  bar — nominally  at  least  —  for  fourteen 
years,  but  the  most  which  he  ever  seems  to  have  made  in 
»ny  one  year  was  short  of  230Z.,  and  latterly  his  practice 
was  much  diminishing  instead  of  increasing.  His  own 
impatience  of  solicitors'  patronage  was  against  him ;  his 
well-known  dabblings  in  poetry  were  still  more  against 
him  ;  and  his  general  repute  for  wild  and  unprofessional  ad- 
venturousness — which  was  much  greater  than  he  deserved 
— was  probably  most  of  all  against  him.  Before  he  had 
been  six  years  at  the  bar  he  joined  the  organization  of  the 
Edinburgh  Volunteer  Cavalry,  took  a  very  active  part  in 
the  drill,  and  was  made  their  Quartermaster.  Then  he 
visited  London,  and  became  largely  known  for  his 
ballads,  and  his  love  of  ballads.  In  his  eighth  year 
at  the  bar  he  accepted  a  small  permanent  appointment, 
with  300Z.  a  year,  as  sheriff  of  Selkirkshire;  and  this 
occurring  soon  after  his  marriage  to  a  lady  of  some 
means,  no  doubt  diminished  still  further  his  profes- 
sional zeal.  For  one  third  of  the  time  during  which 
Scott  practised  as  an  advocate  he  made  no  pretence  of 
taking  interest  in  that  part  of  his  work,  though  he  was 
always  deeply  interested  in  the  law  itself.  In  1806  he 
undertook  gratuitously  the  duties  of  a  Clerk  of  Session — 
a  permanent  officer  of  the  Court  at  Edinburgh — and  dis- 
charged them  without  remuneration  for  five  years,  from 
1806  to  1811,  in  order  to  secure  his  ultimate  succession  to 
the  office  in  the  place  of  an  invalid,  who  for  that 
period  received  all  the  emoluments  and  did  none  of  the 
work.  Nevertheless  Scott's  legal  abilities  were  so  well 
known,  that  it  was  certainly  at  one  time  intended  to  offer 


li.  J  YOUTH— CHOICE  OF  A  PEOFBSSION.  29 

him  a  Barony  of  the  Exchequer,  and  it  was  his  own  doing, 
apparently,  that  it  was  not  offered.  The  life  of  literature 
and  the  life  of  the  Bar  hardly  ever  suit,  and  in  Scott's 
case  they  suited  the  less,  that  he  felt  himself  likely  to  he 
a  dictator  in  the  one  field,  and  only  a  postulant  in  the 
other.  literature  was  a  far  greater  gainer  by  his  choice, 
than  Law  could  have  been  a  loser.  For  his  capacity  for 
the  law  he  shared  with  thousands  of  able  men,  his 
capacity  for  literature  with  few  or  none. 


CHAPTER  IH. 

LOVE   AND   MARRIAGE. 

ONE  Sunday,  about  two  years  before  his  call  to  the  bat, 
Scott  offered  his  umbrella  to  a  young  lady  of  much 
beauty  who  was  coming  out  of  the  Greyfriars  Church 
during  a  shower ;  the  umbrella  was  graciously  accepted  ; 
and  it  was  not  an  unprecedented  consequence  that  Scott 
fell  in  love  with  the  borrower,  who  turned  out  to  be 
Margaret,  daughter  of  Sir  John  and  Lady  Jane  Stuart 
Belches,  of  Invernay.  For  near  six  years  after  this, 
Scott  indulged  the  hope  of  marrying  this  lady,  and  it 
does  not  seem  doubtful  that  the  lady  herself  was  in 
part  responsible  for  this  impression.  Scott's  father,  who 
thought  his  son's  prospects  very  inferior  to  those  of  Miss 
Stuart  Belches,  felt  it  his  duty  to  warn  the  baronet  of 
his  son's  views,  a  warning  which  the  old  gentleman 
appears  to  have  received  with  that  grand  unconcern 
characteristic  of  elderly  persons  in  high  position,  as  a 
hint  intrinsically  incredible,  or  at  least  unworthy  of 
notice  But  he  took  no  alarm,  and  Scott's  attentions  to 
Margaret  Stuart  Belches  continued  till  close  on  the  eve 
of  her  marriage,  in  1796,  to  William  Forbes  (afterwards 
Sir  William  Forbes),  of  Pitsligo,  a  banker,  who  proved 
to  be  one  of  Sir  Walter's  most  generous  and  most 
delicate-minded  friends,  when  his  time  of  troubles  came 


in.]  LOVE  AND  MARRIAGE.  81 

towards  the  end  of  both  their  lives.  Whether  Scott  was 
in  part  mistaken^  as  to  the  impression  he  had  made  on 
the  young  lady,  or  she  was  mistaken  as  to  the  impression 
he  had  made  on  herself,  or  whether  other  circumstances 
intervened  to  cause  misunderstanding,  or  the  grand  in- 
difference of  Sir  John  gave  way  to  active  intervention 
when  the  question  became  a  practical  one,  the  world  will 
now  never  know,  but  it  does  not  seem  very  likely  that 
a  man  of  so  much  force  as  Scott,  who  certainly  had  at 
one  time  assured  himself  at  least  of  the  young  lady's 
strong  regard,  should  have  been  easily  displaced  even  by 
a  rival  of  ability  and  of  most  generous  and  amiable 
character.  An  entry  in  the  diary  which  Scott  kept  in 
1827,  after  Constable's  and  Ballantyne's  failure,  and  his 
wife's  death,  seems  to  me  to  suggest  that  there  may  have 
been  some  misunderstanding  between  the  young  people, 
Chough  I  am  not  sure  that  the  inference  is  justified. 
Che  passage  completes  the  story  of  this  passion — Scott's 
first  and  only  deep  passion — so  far  as  it  can  ever  be 
known  to  us ;  and  as  it  is  a  very  pathetic  and  charac- 
teristic entry,  and  the  attachment  to  which  it  refers  had 
a  great  influence  on  Scott's  life,  both  in  keeping  him  frefr 
from  some  of  the  most  dangerous  temptations  of  the 
young,  during  his  youth,  and  in  creating  within  him 
an  interior  world  of  dreams  and  recollections  throughout 
his  whole  life,  on  which  his  imaginative  nature  was  con- 
tinually fed — I  may  as  well  give  it.  "He  had  taken," 
says  Mr.  Lockhart,  "for  that  winter  [1827],  the  house 
No.  6,  Shandwick  Place,  which  he  occupied  by  the. 
month  during  the  remainder  of  his  servitude  as  a  clerk 
of  session.  Very  near  this  house,  he  was  told  a  few 
days  after  he  took  possession,  dwelt  the  aged  mother  of 
his  first  love ;  and  he  expressed  to  hie  friend  Mrs, 


83  SIS  WALTEB  SCOTT.  [CHAK 

Skene,  a  wish  that  she  should  carry  him  to  renew  an 
acquaintance  which  seems  to  have  heen  interrupted  from 
the  period  of  his  youthful  romance.  Mrs.  Skene  com- 
plied with  his  desire,  and  she  tells  me  that  a  very 
painful  scene  ensued."  His  diary  says,  —  "November 
7th.  Began  to  settle  myself  this  morning  after  the  hurry 
of  mind  and  even  of  body  which  I  have  lately  under- 
gone. I  went  to  make  a  visit  and  fairly  softened 
myself,  like  an  old  fool,  with  recalling  old  stories  till 
I  was  fit  for  nothing  but  shedding  tears  and  repeating 
verses  for  the  whole  night.  This  is  sad  work.  The  very 
grave  gives  up  its  dead,  and  time  rolls  back  thirty  years 
to  add  to  my  perplexities.  I  don't  care.  I  begin  to 
grow  case-hardened,  and  like  a  stag  turning  at  bay, 
my  naturally  good  temper  grows  fierce  and  dangerous. 
Yet  what  a  romance  to  tell  —  and  told  I  fear  it  will  one 
day  be.  And  then  my  three  years  of  dreaming  and  my 
two  years  of  wakening  will  be  chronicled,  doubtless.  But 
the  dead  will  feel  no  pain.  —  November  10th.  At  twelve 
o'clock  I  went  again  to  poor  Lady  Jane  to  talk  over  old 
stories.  I  am  not  clear  that  it  is  a  right  or  healthful 
indulgence  to  be  ripping  up  old  sores,  but  it  seems  to 
give  her  deep-rooted  sorrow  words,  and  that  is  a  mental 
blood-letting.  To  me  these  things  are  now  matter  of  calm 
and  solemn  recollection,  never  to  be  forgotten,  yet  scarce 
to  be  remembered  with  pain."  l  It  was  in  1797,  after 
the  break-up  of  his  hopes  in  relation  to  this  attachment, 
that  Scott  wrote  the  lines  To  a  Violet,  which  Mr.  F.  T.  Pal- 
grave,  in  his  thoughtful  and  striking  introduction  to  Scott's 
poems,  rightly  characterize  sas  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
af  those  poems.  It  is,  however,  far  from  one  character- 


Lookharf  a  Life  of  Scott,  iz. 


mj  LOVE  AND  MAREIAGE.  39 

istic  of  Scott,  indeed,  BO  different  in  style  from  the  best 
of  his  other  poems,  that  Mr.  Browning  might  well  have 
said  of  Scott,  as  he  once  affirmed  of  himself,  that  foi 
the  purpose  of  one  particular  poem,  he  "who  blows 
through  bronze,"  had  "breathed  through  silver," — had 
"curbed  the  liberal  hand  subservient  proudly," — and 
tamed  his  spirit  to  a  key  elsewhere  unknown. 

"  The  violet  in  her  greenwood  bower, 

Where  birchen  boughs  with  hazels  mingle^ 
May  boast  itself  the  fairest  flower 
In  glen,  or  copse,  or  forest  dingle. 

"  Though  fair  her  gems  of  azure  hue, 

Beneath  the  dewdrop's  weight  reclining, 
I've  seen  an  eye  of  lovelier  blue, 
More  sweet  through  watery  lustre  shining. 

"The  summer  sun  that  dew  shall  dry, 

Ere  yet  the  day  be  past  its  morrow  j 
Nor  longer  in  my  false  love's  eye 

Eemain'd  the  tear  of  parting  sorrow.** 

These  lines  obviously  betray  a  feeling  of  resentment, 
which  may  or  may  not  have  been  justified ;  but  they  are 
perhaps  the  most  delicate  produced  by  his  pen.  The 
pride  which  was  always  so  notable  a  feature  in  Scott,  pro- 
bably sustained  him  through  the  keen,  inward  pain  which 
it  is  very  certain  from  a  great  many  of  his  own  words  that 
he  must  have  suffered  in  this  uprooting  of  his  most  pas- 
sionate hopes.  And  it  was  in  part  probably  the  same 
pride  which  led  him  to  form,  within  the  year,  a  new  tie — 
his  engagement  to  Mademoiselle  Charpentier,  or  Miss 
Carpenter  as  she  was  usually  called, — the  daughter  of  a 
French  royalist  of  Lyons  who  had  died  early  in  the  revo- 
lution. She  had  come  after  her  father's  death  to  Eng- 
land, chiefly,  it  seems,  because  in  the  Marquis  of  Down' 


34  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

shire,  who  was  an  old  friend  of  the  family,  her  mother  knew 
that  she  should  find  a  protector  for  her  children.  Misa 
Carpenter  was  a  lively  beauty,  probably  of  no  great  depth 
of  character.  The  few  letters  given  of  hers  in  Mr.  Lock- 
hart's  life  of  Scott,  give  the  impression  of  an  amiable, 
potted  girl,  of  somewhat  thin  and  espiegle  character, 
who  was  rather  charmed  at  the  depth  and  intensity  of 
Scott's  nature,  and  at  the  expectations  which  he  seemed 
to  form  of  what  love  should  mean,  than  capable  of  realiz- 
ing them.  Evidently  she  had  no  inconsiderable  pleasure  in 
display ;  but  she  made  on  the  whole  a  very  good  wife,  only 
one  to  be  protected  by  Vnm  from  every  care,  and  not  one 
to  share  Scott's  deeper  anxieties,  or  to  participate  in  his 
dreams.  Yet  Mrs.  Scott  was  not  devoid  of  spirit  and  self- 
control.  For  instance,  when  Mr.  Jeffrey,  having  reviewed 
Marmion  in  the  Edinburgh  in  that  depreciating  and  om- 
niscient tone  which  was  then  considered  the  evidence  of 
critical  acumen,  dined  with  Scott  on  the  very  day  on 
which  the  review  had  appeared,  Mrs.  Scott  behaved  to 
him  through  the  whole  evening  with  the  greatest  polite- 
ness, but  fired  this  parting  shot  in  her  broken  English, 
as  he  took  his  leave, — "Well,  good  night,  Mr.  Jeffrey, — 
dey  tell  me  you  have  abused  Scott  in  de  Review,  and  I 
hope  Mr.  Constable  has  paid  you  very  well  for  writing 
it."  It  is  hinted  that  Mrs.  Scott  was,  at  the  time  of 
Scott's  greatest  fame,  fax  more  exhilarated  by  it  than  her 
husband  with  his  strong  sense  and  sure  self-measurement 
evar  was.  Mr.  Lockhart  records  that  Mrs.  Grant  of  Laggan 
once  said  of  them,  "  Mr.  Scott  always  seems  to  me  like  a 
glass,  through  which  the  rays  of  admiration  pass  without 
sensibly  affecting  it ;  but  the  bit  of  paper  that  lies  beside 
it  will  presently  be  in  a  blaze,  and  no  wonder."  The  bit 
of  paper,  however,  never  was  in  a  blaze  that  I  know  of; 


ra.]  LOVE  AND  MABBIAGE.  88 

and  possibly  Mrs.  Grant's  remark  may  have  had  a  littlt 
feminine  spite  in  it  At  all  events,  it  was  not  till  the  rays 
of  misfortune,  instead  of  admiration,  fell  upon  Scott's  life, 
that  the  delicate  tissue  paper  shrivelled  up ;  nor  does  it 
seem  that,  even  then,  it  was  the  trouble,  so  much  as  a 
serious  malady  that  had  fixed  on  Lady  Scott  before  Sir 
Walter's  troubles  began,  which  really  scorched  up  her 
life.  That  she  did  not  feel  with  the  depth  and  intensity 
of  her  husband,  or  in  the  same  key  of  feeling,  is  clear. 
After  the  failure,  and  during  the  preparations  for  abandon- 
ing the  house  in  Edinburgh,  Scott  records  in  his  diary  : — 
"  It  is  with  a  sense  of  pain  that  I  leave  behind  a  parcel 
of  trumpery  prints  and  little  ornaments,  once  the  pride 
of  Lady  Scott's  heart,  but  which  she  saw  consigned  with 
indifference  to  the  chance  of  an  auction.  Things  that  have 
had  their  day  of  importance  with  me,  I  cannot  forget, 
though  the  merest  trifles ;  but  I  am  glad  that  she,  with 
bad  health,  and  enough  to  vex  her,  has  not  the  same  use- 
less mode  of  associating  recollections  with  this  unpleasant 
business."  * 

Poor  Lady  Scott  !  It  was  rather  like  a  bird  of  paradise 
mating  with  an  eagle.  Yet  the  result  was  happy  on  the 
whole ;  for  she  had  a  thoroughly  kindly  nature,  and  a  true 
heart.  Within  ten  days  before  her  death,  Scott  enters  in 
his  diary  : — "  Still  welcoming  me  with  a  smile,  and  assert- 
ing she  is  better."  She  was  not  the  ideal  wife  for  Scott ; 
but  she  loved  him,  sunned  herself  in  his  prosperity,  and 
tried  to  bear  his  adversity  cheerfully.  In  her  last  illness 
she  would  always  reproach  her  husband  and  children  fo* 
their  melancholy  faces,  even  when  that  melancholy  was,  a& 
•he  well  knew,  due  to  the  approaching  shadow  of  her  OWD 
death. 

»  Lookharf  a  Life  of  Scott,  riii.  273. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

EARLIEST    POETRY    AND     BORDER    MINSTRELSY. 

SCOTT'S  first  serious  attempt  in  poetry  was  a  version  oi 
Burger's  Lenoi'e,  a  spectre-ballad  of  the  violent  kind, 
much  in  favour  in  Germany  at  a  somewhat  earlier  period, 
but  certainly  not  a  specimen  of  the  higher  order  of  ima- 
ginative genius.  However,  it  stirred  Scott's  youthful 
blood,  and  made  him  "  wish  to  heaven  he  could  get  a 
skull  and  two  cross-bones !"  a  modest  desire,  to  be  ex- 
pressed with  so  much  fervour,  and  one  almost  immediately 
gratified.  Probably  no  one  ever  gave  a  more  spirited 
version  of  Burger's  ballad  than  Scott  has  given ;  but  the 
use  to  which  Miss  Cranstoun,  a  friend  and  confidante  of 
his  love  for  Miss  Stuart  Belches,  strove  to  turn  it,  by 
getting  it  printed,  blazoned,  and  richly  bound,  and  pre- 
senting it  to  the  young  lady  as  a  proof  of  her  admirer's 
abilities,  was  perhaps  hardly  very  sagacious.  It  is  quite 
possible,  at  least,  that  Miss  Stuart  Belches  may  have 
regarded  this  vehement  admirer  of  spectral  wedding 
journeys  and  skeleton  bridals,  as  unlikely  to  prepare  for 
her  that  comfortable,  trim,  and  decorous  future  which 
young  ladies  usually  desire.  At  any  rate,  the  bold  stroke 
failed.  The  young  lady  admired  the  verses,  but,  as  we 
have  seen,  declined  the  translator.  Perhaps  she  regarded 
as  safer,  if  less  brilliant,  work  than  the  moat 


it.J    8ARL1EST  POETRY  AND  BOEDER  MTNSTBEIiSY.    # 

effective  description  of  skeleton  riders.  Indeed,  Scott  at 
this  time — to  those  who  did  not  know  what  was  in  him, 
which  no  one,  not  even  excepting  himself,  did — had  no 
very  sure  prospects  of  comfort,  to  say  nothing  of  wealth. 
It  ia  curious,  too,  that  his  first  adventure  in  literature  was 
thus  connected  with  his  interest  in  the  preternatural,  for 
no  man  ever  lived  whose  genius  was  sounder  and  healthier, 
and  less  disposed  to  dwell  on  the  half-and-half  lights  of  a 
dim  and  eerie  world ;  yet  ghostly  subjects  always  interested 
him  deeply,  and  he  often  touched  them  in  his  stories,  more, 
I  think,  from  the  strong  artistic  contrast  they  afforded  to 
his  favourite  conceptions  of  life,  than  from  any  other 
motive.  There  never  was,  I  fancy,  an  organization  less 
susceptible  of  this  order  of  fears  and  superstitions  than  his 
own.  When  a  friend  jokingly  urged  him,  within  a  few 
months  of  his  death,  not  to  leave  Rome  on  a  Friday,  as  it 
was  a  day  of  bad  omen  for  a  journey,  he  replied,  laughing, 
"  Superstition  is  very  picturesque,  and  I  make  it,  at  times, 
stand  me  in  great  stead,  but  I  never  allow  it  to  interfere 
with  interest  or  convenience."  Basil  Hall  reports  Scott's 
having  told  him  on  the  last  evening  of  the  year  1824, 
when  they  were  talking  over  this  subject,  that  "having 
once  arrived  at  a  country  inn,  he  was  told  there  was  no 
bed  for  him.  'No  place  to  lie  down  at  all?'  said  he. 
'  No,*  said  the  people  of  the  house ;  '  none,  except  a  room 
in  which  there  is  a  corpse  lying.'  '  Well,'  said  he,  '  did 
the  person  die  of  any  contagious  disorder?'  'Oh,  no; 
not  at  all,'  said  they.  '  Well,  then,'  continued  he,  '  let 
me  have  the  other  bed.  So,'  said  Sir  Walter,  '  I  laid  me 
down,  and  never  had  a  better  night's  sleep  in  my  life.'" 
He  was,  indeed,  a  man  of  iron  nerve,  whose  truest  artistic 
enjoyment  was  in  noting  the  forms  of  character  seen  in 
full  daylight  by  the  light  of  the  most  ordinary  experience, 


88  8IE  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

Perhaps  for  that  reason  he  can  on  occasion  relate  a 
preternatural  incident,  such  as  the  appearance  of  old  Alice 
at  the  fountain,  at  the  very  moment  of  her  death,  to  the 
Master  of  Eavenswood,  in  The  Bride  of  Lammermoor, 
with  great  effect.  It  was  probably  the  vivacity  with 
which  he  realized  the  violence  which  such  incidents  do  to 
the  terrestrial  common  sense  of  our  ordinary  nature,  and 
at  the  same  time  the  sedulous  accuracy  of  detail  with 
which  he  narrated  them,  rather  than  any,  even  the 
smallest,  special  susceptibility  of  his  own  brain  to  thrills 
of  the  preternatural  kind,  which  gave  him  rather  a  unique 
pleasure  in  dealing  with  such  preternatural  elements. 
Sometimes,  however,  his  ghosts  are  a  little  too  muscular 
to  produce  their  due  effect  as  ghosts.  In  translating 
Burger's  ballad  his  great  success  lay  in  the  vividness  of  the 
spectre's  horsemanship.  For  instance, — 

"  Tramp !  tramp !  along  the  land  they  rode, 

Splash !  splash !  along  the  sea ; 
The  scourge  is  red,  the  spur  drops  blood, 
The  flashing  pebbles  flee," 

is  far  better  than  any  ghostly  touch  in  it ;  so,  too,  every 
one  will  remember  how  spirited  a  rider  is  the  white  Lady 
of  Avenel,  in  The  Monastery,  and  how  vigorously  she 
takes  fords, — as  vigorously  as  the  sheriff  himself,  who  was 
very  fond  of  fords.  On  the  whole,  Scott  was  too  sunny 
and  healthy-minded  for  a  ghost-seer ;  and  the  skull  and 
cross-bones  with  which  he  ornamented  his  "  den  "  in  his 
father's  house,  did  not  succeed  in  tempting  him  into  the 
world  of  twilight  and  cobwebs  wherein  he  made  his  first 
literary  excursion.  His  William  and  Helen,  the  name  he 
gave  to  his  translation  of  Burger's  Lenore,  made  in  1 795, 
was  effective,  after  all,  more  foi  its  rapid  movement,  than 
for  the  weirdness  of  its  effects. 


IT.]     EARLIEST  POETRY  AND  BORDER  MINSTRELSY.    39 

If,  however,  it  was  the  raw  preternaturalism  of  such 
ballads  as  Burger's  which  first  led  Scott  to  test  his  own 
powers,  his  genius  soon  turned  to  more  appropriate  and 
natural  subjects.  Ever  since  his  earliest  college  days  he 
had  been  collecting,  in  those  excursions  of  his  into  Lid- 
de,*dale  and  elsewhere,  materials  for  a  book  on  The 
Minstrelsy  of  the  Scottish  Border  ;  and  the  publication  of 
this  work,  in  January,  1802  (in  two  volumes  at  first),  was 
his  first  great  literary  success.  The  whole  edition  of  eight 
hundred  copies  was  sold  within  the  year,  while  the  skill 
and  care  which  Scott  had  devoted  to  the  historical  illustra- 
tion of  the  ballads,  and  the  force  and  spirit  of  his  own  new 
ballads,  written  in  imitation  of  the  old,  gained  him  at 
once  a  very  high  literary  name.  And  the  name  was  well 
deserved.  The  Border  Minstrelsy  was  more  commen- 
surate in  range  with  the  genius  of  Scott,  than  even  the 
romantic  poems  by  which  it  was  soon  followed,  and  which 
were  received  with  such  universal  and  almost  unparalleled 
delight.  For  Scott's  Border  Minstrelsy  gives  more  than  a 
glimpse  of  all  his  many  great  powers — his  historical  in- 
dustry and  knowledge,  his  masculine  humour,  his  delight 
in  restoring  the  vision  of  the  "  old,  simple,  violent  world  " 
of  rugged  activity  and  excitement,  as  well  as  that  power 
to  kindle  men's  hearts,  as  by  a  trumpet-call,  which  was 
the  chief  secret  of  the  charm  of  his  own  greatest  poems. 
It  is  much  easier  to  discern  the  great  novelist  of  sub- 
sequent years  in  the  Border  Minstrelsy  than  even  in  The 
Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  Marmion,  and  The  Lady  of  the 
Lake  taken  together.  From  those  romantic  poems  you 
would  never  guess  that  Scott  entered  more  eagerly  and 
heartily  into  the  common  incidents  and  common  cares  of 
every-day  human  life  than  into  the  most  romantic  for- 
tones ;  from  them  you  would  never  know  how  com- 


40  filB  WALTER  8COTT.  [cm* 

pletely  he  had  mastered  the  leading  features  of  quite 
different  periods  of  our  history ;  from  them  you  would 
never  infer  that  you  had  before  you  one  of  the  best 
plodders,  as  well  as  one  of  the  most  enthusiastic  dreamers, 
in  British  literature.  But  all  this  might  have  been 
gathered  from  the  various  introductions  and  notes  to  the 
Border  Minstrelsy,  which  are  full  of  skilful  illustrations, 
of  comments  teeming  with  humour,  and  of  historic  weight. 
The  general  introduction  gives  us  a  general  survey  of  the 
graphic  pictures  of  Border  quarrels,  their  simple  violence 
and  simple  cunning.  It  enters,  for  instance,  with  grave 
humour  into  the  strong  distinction  taken  in  the  debatable 
land  between  a  "  freebooter  "  and  a  "  thief,"  and  the  diffi- 
culty which  the  inland  counties  had  in  grasping  it,  and 
paints  for  us,  with  great  vivacity,  the  various  Border  super- 
stitions. Another  commentary  on  a  very  amusing  ballad, 
commemorating  the  manner  in  which  a  blind  harper  stole 
a  horse  and  got  paid  for  a  mare  he  had  not  lost,  giver 
an  account  of  the  curious  tenure  of  land,  called  that  ol 
the  "  king's  rentallers,"  or  "  kindly  tenants ;"  and  a  third 
describes,  in  language  as  vivid  as  the  historical  romance 
of  Kenilworih,  written  years  after,  the  manner  in  which 
Queen  Elizabeth  received  the  news  of  a  check  to  her 
policy,  and  vented  her  spleen  on  the  King  of  Scotland. 

So  much  as  to  the  breadth  of  the  literary  area  which 
this  first  book  of  Scott's  covered.  As  regards  the  poetic 
power  which  his  own  new  ballads,  in  imitation  of  the 
old  ones,  evinced,  I  cannot  say  that  those  of  the  first 
issue  of  the  Border  Minstrelsy  indicated  anything  like  the 
force  which  might  have  been  expected  from  one  who  was 
so  soon  to  be  the  author  of  Marmion,  though  many  of 
Scott's  warmest  admirers,  including  Sir  Francis  Doyle, 
teem  to  place  GUnfmlas  among  his  fintet  productions.  But 


rr.]     HARLIBST  POETJfcY  AND  BORDEB  MINSTRELSY.    41 

in  the  third  volume  of  the  Border  Minstrelsy,  which  did 
not  appear  till  1803,  is  contained  a  ballad  on  the  assas- 
sination of  the  Regent  Murray,  the  story  being  told 
by  his  assassin,  which  seems  to  me  a  specimen  of  his  very 
highest  poetical  powers.  In  Cadyow  Castle  you  have  not 
only  that  rousing  trumpet-note  which  you  hear  in  Mar- 
mion,  but  the  pomp  and  glitter  of  a  grand  martial  scene  is 
painted  with  all  Scott's  peculiar  terseness  and  vigour. 
The  opening  is  singularly  happy  in  preparing  the  reader 
for  the  description  of  a  violent  deed.  The  Earl  of  Arran, 
chief  of  the  clan  of  Hamiltons,  is  chasing  among  the  old 
oaks  of  Cadyow  Castle, — oaks  which  belonged  to  the 
ancient  Caledonian  forest, — the  fierce,  wild  bulls,  milk- 
white,  with  black  muzzles,  which  were  not  extirpated  till 
shortly  before  Scott's  own  birth : — 

"  Through  the  huge  oaks  of  Evandale, 

Whose  limbs  a  thousand  years  have  worn, 
What  sullen  roar  comes  down  the  gale, 
And  drowns  the  hunter's  pealing  horn  ? 

*  Mightiest  of  all  the  beasts  of  chase 

That  roam  in  woody  Caledon, 
Crashing  the  forest  in  his  race, 
The  mountain  bull  conies  thundering  on. 

**  Pierce  on  the  hunter's  quiver'd  band 
He  rolls  his  eyes  of  swarthy  glow, 
Spurns,  with  black  hoof  and  horn,  the  sand, 
And  tosses  high  his  mane  of  snow. 

*  Aim'd  well,  the  chieftain's  lance  has  flown  j 

Struggling  in  blood  the  savage  lies ; 
Els  roar  is  sunk  in  hollow  groan, — 

Sound,  merry  huntsman !  sound  the  pryse  I H 

It  I«  while  the  hunters  are  resting  after  this  feat,  that 
Bothwellhaugh  dashes   among  them  headlong,   spurring 
his  jaded  steed  with  poniard  instead  of  spur : — 
D        3  4 


i*  BIB  WALTEE  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

M  From  gory  selle  and  reeling  steed, 

Sprang  the  fierce  horseman  with  a  bound, 
And  reeking  from  the  recent  deed, 
He  dash'd  his  carbine  on  the  ground." 

And  then  Bothwellhaugh  tells  his  tale  of  blood,  describ- 
ing the  procession  from  which  he  had  singled  oat  bis 
prey:— 

* '  Dark  Morton,  girt  with  many  a  spear, 

Murder's  foul  minion,  led  the  van  ; 
And  clash'd  their  broadswords  in  the  rear 
The  wild  Macfarlanes*  plaided  clan. 

"'  Glencairn  and  stout  Parkhead  were  nigh, 

Obsequious  at  their  Regent's  rein, 
And  haggard  Lindsay's  iron  eye, 
That  saw  fair  Mary  weep  in  vain. 

•''Mid  pennon'd  spears,  a  steely  grove, 

Proud  Murray's  plumage  floated  high  j 
Scarce  could  his  trampling  charger  move, 
So  close  the  minions  crowded  nigh. 

41 '  From  the  raised  vizor's  shade,  his  eye, 
Dark  rolling,  glanced  the  ranks  along, 
And  his  steel  truncheon  waved  on  high, 
Seem'd  marshalling  the  iron  throng. 

"  '  But  yet  his  sadden'd  brow  confess'd 
A  passing  shade  of  doubt  and  awe ; 
Some  fiend  was  whispering  in  his  breast, 
"  Beware  of  injured  Bothwellhaugh !  * 

* '  The  death-shot  parts, — the  charger  springs,— 

Wild  rises  tumult's  startling  roar ! 
And  Murray's  plumy  helmet  rings — 
Rings  on  the  ground  to  rise  no  more.'  " 

This  was  the  ballad  which  made  so  strong  an  impression 
on  Thomas  Campbell,  the  poet.     Referring  to  some  of  the 


nr.j  EARLIEST  FOETBY  AND  BOEDER  MINSTRELSY.  43 

lines  I  have  quoted,  Campbell  said, — "  I  have  repeated 
them  so  often  on  the  North  Bridge  that  the  whole  frater- 
nity of  coachmen  know  me  by  tongue  as  I  pass.  To  be 
sure,  to  a  mind  in  sober,  serious,  street- walking  humour,  it 
must  bear  an  appearance  of  lunacy  when  one  stamps  with 
the  hurried  pace  and  fervent  shake  of  the  head  which 
strong,  pithy  poetry  excites."1  I  suppose  anecdotes  oi 
this  kind  have  been  oftener  told  of  Scott  than  of  any 
other  English  poet.  Indeed,  Sir  Walter,  who  understood 
himself  well,  gives  the  explanation  in  one  of  his  diaries : — 
"  I  am  sensible,"  he  says,  "  that  if  there  be  anything  good 
about  my  poetry  or  prose  either,  it  is  a  hurried  frankness 
of  composition,  which  pleases  soldiers,  sailors,  and  young 
people  of  bold  and  active  dispositions."1  He  might  have 
included  old  people  too.  I  have  heard  of  two  old  men — 
complete  strangers — passing  each  other  on  a  dark  London 
night,  when  one  of  them  happened  to  be  repeating  to  him- 
self, just  as  Campbell  did  to  the  hackney  coachmen  of  the 
North  Bridge  of  Edinburgh,  the  last  lines  of  the  account 
of  Flodden  Field  in  Marmion,  "  Charge,  Chester,  charge," 
when  suddenly  a  reply  came  oiit  of  the  darkness,  "  On, 
Stanley,  on,"  whereupon  they  finished  the  death  of  Mar- 
mion between  them,  took  off  their  hats  to  each  other,  and 
parted,  laugliing.  Scott's  is  almost  the  only  poetry 
in  the  English  language  that  not  only  runs  thus  in  the 
head  of  average  men,  but  heats  the  head  in  which  it 
runs  by  the  mere  force  of  its  hurried  frankness  of 
style,  to  use  Scott's  own  terms,  or  by  that  of  its  strong 
and  pithy  eloquence,  as  Campbell  phrased  it.  And  u 
Oadyow  Castle  this  style  is  at  its  culminating  point. 

»  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  ii.  79. 
1  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  viii.  370. 


CHAPTER  V. 

SCOTT'S   MATUEEB   POEMS. 

SCOTT'S  genius  flowered  late.  Cadyow  Castle,  the  first  ol 
his  poems,  I  think,  that  has  indisputable  genius  plainly 
stamped  on  its  terse  and  fiery  lines,  was  composed  in  1802, 
when  he  was  already  thirty-one  years  of  age.  It  was  in 
the  same  year  that  he  wrote  the  first  canto  of  his  first 
great  romance  in  verse,  Tfte  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  a 
poem  which  did  not  appear  till  1805,  when  he  was  thirty- 
four.  The  first  canto  (not  including  the  framework,  of 
which  the  aged  harper  is  the  principal  figure)  was  written 
in  the  lodgings  to  which  he  was  confined  for  a  fortnight 
in  1802,  by  a  kick  received  from  a  horse  on  Portobello 
sands,  during  a  charge  of  the  Volunteer  Cavalry  in  which 
Scott  was  cornet.  The  poem  was  originally  intended  to 
be  included  in  the  Border  Minstrelsy,  as  one  of  the 
studies  in  the  antique  style,  but  soon  outgrew  the  limits  of 
such  a  study  both  in  length  and  in  the  freedom  of  its 
manner.  Both  the  poorest  and  the  best  parts  of  Tlie  Lay 
were  in  a  special  manner  due  to  Lady  Dalkeith  (afterwards 
Duchess  of  Buccleugh),  who  suggested  it,  and  in  whose 
honour  the  poem  was  written.  It  was  she  who  requested 
Scott  to  write  a  poem  on  the  legend  of  the  goblin 
page,  Gilpin  Horner,  and  this  Scott  attempted, — and, 
so  far  as  the  goblin  himself  was  concerned,  conspicuously 


T.]  SCOTT'S  MATUBER  POEMS.  45 

.failed.  He  himself  clearly  saw  that  the  story  of  this 
unmanageable  imp  was  both  confused  and  uninteresting, 
and  that  in  fact  he  had  to  extricate  himself  from  the 
original  groundwork  of  the  tale,  as  from  a  regular  literary 
scrape,  in  the  best  way  he  could.  In  a  letter  to  Miss 
Seward,  Scott  says, — "  At  length  the  story  appeared  so 
uncouth  that  I  was  fain  to  put  it  into  the  mouth  of  my 
old  minstrel,  lest  the  nature  of  it  should  be  misunder- 
stood, and  I  should  be  suspected  of  setting  up  a  new 
school  of  poetry,  instead  of  a  feeble  attempt  to  imitate  the 
old.  In  the  process  of  the  romance,  the  page,  intended 
to  be  a  principal  person  in  the  work,  contrived  (from 
the  baseness  of  his  natural  propensities,  I  suppose)  to  slink 
down  stairs  into  the  kitchen,  and  now  he  must  e'en  abide 
there."1  And  I  venture  to  say  that  no  reader  of  the  poem 
ever  has  distinctly  understood  what  the  goblin  page  did  or 
did  not  do,  what  it  was  that  was  "  lost "  throughout  the 
poem  and  "  found  "  at  the  conclusion,  what  was  the  object 
of  his  personating  the  young  heir  of  the  house  of  Scott, 
and  whether  or  not  that  object  was  answered ; — what  use, 
if  any,  the  magic  book  of  Michael  Scott  was  to  the  Lady 
of  Branksome,  or  whether  it  was  only  harm  to  her ;  and  I 
doubt  moreover  whether  any  one  ever  cared  an  iota  what 
answer,  or  whether  any  answer,  might  be  given  to  any  of 
these  questions.  All  this,  as  Scott  himself  clearly  per- 
ceived, was  left  confused,  and  not  simply  vague.  The 
goblin  imp  had  been  more  certainly  an  imp  of  mischief  to 
him  than  even  to  his  boyish  ancestor.  But  if  Lady 
Dalkeith  suggested  the  poorest  part  of  the  poem,  she 
certainly  inspired  its  best  part.  Scott  says,  as  we  have 
•een,  that  he  brought  in  the  aged  harper  to  save  himself 

*  Lockhart's  Life  oj  Scott,  ii.  217. 


46  8IE  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

from  the  imputation  of  "setting  up  a  new  school  of 
poetry  '  instead  of  humbly  imitating  an  old  school.  But 
I  think  that  the  chivalrous  wish  to  do  honour  to  Lady 
Dalkeith,  both  as  a  personal  friend  and  as  the  wife  of  his 
"  chief," — as  he  always  called  the  head  of  the  house  of 
Scott, — had  more  to  do  with  the  introduction  of  the  aged 
harper,  than  the  wish  to  guard  himself  against  the  impu- 
tation of  attempting  a  new  poetic  style.  He  clearly 
intended  the  Duchess  of  The  Lay  to  represent  th« 
Countess  for  whom  he  wrote  it,  and  the  aged  harper,  with 
his  reverence  and  gratitude  and  self-distrust,  was  only  the 
disguise  in  which  he  felt  that  he  could  best  pour  out  his  loy- 
alty, and  the  romantic  devotion  with  which  both  Lord  and 
Lady  Dalkeith,  but  especially  the  latter,  had  inspired  him, 
It  was  certainly  this  beautiful  framework  which  assured 
the  immediate  success  and  permanent  charm  of  the  poem ; 
and  the  immediate  success  was  for  that  day  something 
marvellous.  The  magnificent  quarto  edition  of  750  copies 
was  soon  exhausted,  and  an  octavo  edition  of  1500  copies 
was  sold  out  within  the  year.  In  the  following  year  two 
editions,  containing  together  4250  copies,  were  disposed 
of,  and  before  twenty-five  years  had  elapsed,  that  is,  before 
1830,  44,000  copies  of  the  poem  had  been  bought  by  the 
public  in  this  country,  taking  account  of  the  legitimate 
trade  alone.  Scott  gained  in  all  by  The  Lay  769/.t  an 
unprecedented  sum  in  those  times  for  an  author  to  obtain 
from  any  poem.  Little  more  than  half  a  century  before, 
Johnson  received  but  fifteen  guineas  for  his  stately  poem 
on  The  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,  and  but  ten  guineas  for 
his  London.  I  do  not  say  that  Scott's  poem  had  not  much 
more  in  it  of  true  poetic  fire,  though  Scott  himself,  I 
believe,  preferred  these  poems  of  Johnson's  to  anything 
that  he  himself  ever  wrote.  But  the  disproportion  in 


v.]  SCOTT'S  MATUEEE  POEMS.  49 

the  reward  was  certainly  enormous,  and  yet  what  Scott 
gained  by  his  Lay  was  of  course  much  less  than  he 
gained  by  any  of  his  subsequent  poems  of  equal,  or  any- 
thing like  equal,  length.  Thus  for  Jtfarmion  he  received 
1000  guineas  long  before  the  poem  was  published,  and 
for  one  half  of  the  copyright  of  The  Lord  of  the  Islet 
Constable  paid  Scott  1500  guineas.  If  we  ask  ourselves  to 
what  this  vast  popularity  of  Scott's  poems,  and  especially 
of  '.he  earlier  of  them  (for,  as  often  happens,  he  was  better 
remunerated  for  his  later  and  much  inferior  poems  than 
for  his  earlier  and  more  brilliant  productions)  is  due,  I 
think  the  answer  must  be  for  the  most  part,  the  high 
romantic  glow  and  extraordinary  romantic  simplicity  of  the 
poetical  elements  they  contained.  Take  the  old  harper 
of  The  Lay,  a  figure  which  arrested  the  attention  of  Pitt 
during  even  that  last  most  anxious  year  of  his  anxious  life, 
the  year  of  Ulm  and  Austerlitz.  The  lines  in  which  Scott 
describes  the  old  man's  embarrassment  when  first  urged 
to  play,  produced  on  Pitt,  according  to  his  own  account, 
"  an  effect  which  I  might  have  expected  in  painting,  but 
could  never  have  fancied  capable  of  being  given  in  poetry."  i 
Every  one  knows  the  lines  to  which  Pitt  refers : — 

"  The  humble  boon  was  soon  obtain'd  j 
The  aged  minstrel  audience  gain'd. 
But,  when  he  reach' d  the  room  of  state, 
Where  she  with  all  her  ladies  sate, 
Perchance  he  wish'd  his  boon  denied  | 
For,  when  to  tune  the  harp  he  tried, 
His  trembling  hand  had  lost  the  ease 
Which  marks  security  to  please ; 
And  scenes  long  past,  of  joy  and  pain, 
Came  wildering  o'er  his  aged  brain, — 
He  tried  to  tune  his  harp  in  vain ! 


1  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  ii.  226, 


48  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

The  pitying  Duchess  praised  its  chime, 

And  gave  him  haart,  and  gave  him  time, 

Till  every  string's  according  glee 

Was  blended  into  harmony. 

And  then,  he  said,  he  would  full  fain 

He  could  recall  an  ancient  strain 

He  never  thought  to  sing  again. 

It  was  not  framed  for  village  churls, 

But  for  high  dames  and  mighty  earls } 

He'd  playM  it  to  King  Charles  the  Good, 

When  he  kept  Court  at  Holyrood ; 

And  much  he  wish'd,  yet  fear"d,  to  try 

The  long-forgotten  melody. 

Amid  the  strings  his  fingers  stray'd, 

And  an  uncertain  warbling  made, 

And  oft  he  shook  his  hoary  head. 

But  when  he  caught  the  measure  wild 

The  old  man  raised  his  face,  and  smiled  _. 

And  lighten'd  up  his  faded  eye, 

With  all  a  poet's  ecstasy ! 

In  varying  cadence,  soft  or  strong, 

He  swept  the  sounding  chords  along) 

The  present  scene,  the  future  lot, 

His  toils,  his  wants,  were  all  forgot  j 

Cold  diffidence  and  age's  frost 

In  the  full  tide  of  song  were  lost ; 

Bach  blank  in  faithless  memory  void 

The  poet's  glowing  thought  supplied ; 

And,  while  his  harp  responsive  rung, 

'Twas  thus  the  latest  minstrel  sung. 

****** 

Here  paused  the  harp  ;  and  with  its  s^eR 

The  master's  fire  and  courage  fell  j 

Dejoctedly  and  low  he  bow*d, 

And,  gazing  timid  on  the  crowd, 

He  seem'd  to  seek  in  every  eye 

If  they  approved  his  minstrelsy ; 

And,  diffident  of  present  praise, 

Somewhat  he  spoke  of  former  days, 

And  how  old  age,  and  wandering  long, 

Had  done  his  hand  and  harp  gome  wrong'/ 


v.]  SCOTT'S  MATDEBE  POEMS.  48 

These  lines  hardly  illustrate,  I  think,  the  particular  form 
of  Mr.  Pitt's  criticism,  for  a  quick  succession  of  fine 
shades  of  feeling  of  this  kind  could  never  have  been 
delineated  in  a  painting,  or  indeed  in  a  series  of  paintings, 
at  all,  while  they  are  so  given  in  the  poem.  But  the 
praise  itself,  if  not  its  exact  form,  is  amply  deserved. 
The  singular  depth  of  the  romantic  glow  in  this  passage, 
and  its  equally  singular  simplicity, — a  simplicity  which 
makes  it  intelligible  to  every  one, — are  conspicuous  to 
every  reader.  It  is  not  what  is  called  classical  poetry,  for 
there  is  no  severe  outline, — no  sculptured  completeness 
and  repose, — no  satisfying  wholeness  of  effect  to  the  eye 
of  the  mind, — no  embodiment  of  a  great  action.  The  poet 
gives  us  a  breath,  a  ripple  of  alternating  fear  and  hope  in 
the  heart  of  an  old  man,  and  that  is  all.  He  catches  an 
emotion  that  had  its  roots  deep  in  the  past,  and  that  is 
striving  onward  towards  something  in  the  future ; — he 
traces  the  wistfulness  and  self-distrust  with  which  age  seeks 
to  recover  the  feelings  of  youth, — the  delight  with  which  it 
greets  them  when  they  come, — the  hesitation  and  diffi- 
dence with  which  it  recalls  them  as  they  pass  away,  and 
questions  the  triumph  it  has  just  won, — and  he  paints  all 
this  without  subtlety,  without  complexity,  but  with  a 
swiftness  such  as  few  poets  ever  surpassed.  Generally, 
however,  Scott  prefers  action  itself  for  his  subject,  to  any 
feeling,  however  active  in  its  bent.  The  cases  in  which 
he  makes  a  study  of  any  mood  of  feeling,  as  he  does  of 
this  harper's  feeling,  are  comparatively  rare.  Deloraine's 
night-ride  to  Melrose  is  a  good  deal  more  in  Scott's 
ordinary  way,  than  this  study  of  the  old  harper's  wistful 
mood.  But  whatever  his  subject,  his  treatment  of  it 
is  the  same.  His  lines  are  always  strongly  drawn  ; 
his  handling  is  always  simple;  and  his  subject  always 
3* 


50  8IE  WALTER  SCOTT. 

romantic.  But  though  romantic,  it  is  simple  almost  to 
bareness, — -one  of  the  great  causes  both  of  his  popularity, 
and  of  that  deficiency  in  his  poetry  of  which  so  many 
of  his  admirers  become  conscious  when  they  compare  him 
with  other  and  richer  poets.  Scott  used  to  say  that  in 
poetry  Byron  "  bet "  him ;  and  no  doubt  that  in  which 
chiefly  as  a  poet  he  "  bet "  him,  was  in  the  variety,  the 
richness,  the  lustre  of  his  effects.  A  certain  ruggedness 
and  bareness  was  of  the  essence  of  Scott's  idealism  and 
romance.  It  was  so  in  relation  to  scenery.  He  told 
Washington  Irving  that  he  loved  the  very  nakedness  of 
the  Border  country.  "  It  has  something,"  he  said,  "  bold 
and  stern  and  solitary  about  it.  When  I  have  been  for 
some  time  in  the  rich  scenery  about  Edinburgh,  which 
is  like  ornamented  garden-land,  I  begin  to  wish  myself 
back  again  among  my  honest  grey  hills,  and  if  I  did  not 
see  the  heather  at  least  once  a  year,  /  think  I  should  die" l 
Now,  the  bareness  which  Scott  so  loved  in  his  native 
scenery,  there  is  in  all  his  romantic  elements  of  feeling. 
It  is  while  he  is  bold  and  stern,  that  he  is  at  his  highest 
ideal  point.  Directly  he  begins  to  attempt  rich  or  pretty 
subjects,  as  in  parts  of  The  Lady  of  the  Lake,  and  a  good 
deal  of  The  Lord  of  the  Isles,  and  still  more  in  The  Bridal 
of  Triermain,  his  charm  disappears.  It  is  in  painting 
those  moods  and  exploits,  in  relation  to  which  Scott 
shares  most  completely  the  feelings  of  ordinary  men,  but 
experiences  them  with  far  greater  strength  and  purity 
than  ordinary  men,  that  he  triumphs  as  a  poet.  Mr. 
Lockhart  tells  us  that  some  of  Scott's  senses  were  de- 
cidedly "blunt,"  and  one  seems  to  recognize  this  in  the 
simplicity  of  his  romantic  effects.  "  It  is  a  fact/'  he  says, 

1   Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  v.  248. 


V.]  SCOTT'S  MATUEER  POEMS.  51 

"which  some  philosophers  may  think  worth  setting 
down,  that  Scott's  organization,  as  to  more  than  one  of 
the  senses,  was  the  reverse  of  exquisite.  He  had  very 
little  of  what  musicians  call  an  ear ;  his  smell  was  hardly 
more  delicate.  I  have  seen  him  stare  ahout,  quite  un- 
conscious of  the  cause,  when  his  whole  company  betrayed 
their  uneasiness  at  the  approach  of  an  overkept  haunch 
of  venison ;  and  neither  by  the  nose  nor  the  palate  could 
he  distinguish  corked  wine  from  sound.  He  could  never 
tell  Madeira  from  sherry, — nay,  an  Oriental  friend 
having  sent  him  a  butt  of  sheeraz,  when  he  remembered 
the  circumstance  some  time  afterwards  and  called  for  a 
bottle  to  have  Sir  John  Malcolm's  opinion  of  its  quality, 
it  turned  out  that  his  butler,  mistaking  the  label,  had 
already  served  up  half  the  bin  as  sherry.  Port  he  con- 
sidered as  physic  ....  in  truth  he  liked  no  wines 
except  sparkling  champagne  and  claret ;  but  even  as  to 
the  last  he  was  no  connoisseur,  and  sincerely  preferred  a 
tumbler  of  whisky-toddy  to  the  most  precious  '  liquid- 
ruby  '  that  ever  flowed  in  the  cup  of  a  prince."  * 

However,  Scott's  eye  was  very  keen : — "  It  was  com- 
monly him"  as  his  little  son  once  said,  " that  saw  the, 
hare  sitting"  And  his  perception  of  colour  was  very 
delicate  as  well  as  his  mere  sight.  As  Mr.  Buskin  has 
pointed  out,  his  landscape  painting  is  almost  all  done  by 
the  lucid  use  of  colour.  Nevertheless  this  bluntness 
of  organization  in  relation  to  the  less  important  senses, 
no  doubt  contributed  something  to  the  singleness  and  sim- 
plicity of  the  deeper  and  more  vital  of  Scott's  romantic 
impressions  ;  at  least  there  is  good  reason  to  suppose  that 
delicate  and  complicated  susceptibilities  do  at  least 

1  Lockharfa  Life  of  Scott,  v.  838. 


62  BIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP 

diminish  the  chance  of  living  a  strong  and  concentrated 
life — do  risk  the  frittering  away  of  feeling  on  the  mero 
backwaters  of  sensations,  even  if  they  do  ir^  directly 
tend  towards  artificial  and  indirect  forms  ot  character. 
Scott's  romance  is  like  his  native  scenery, — bold,  bare 
and  rugged,  with  a  swift  deep  stream  of  strong  pure 
feeling  running  through  it.  There  is  plenty  of  coloui 
in  his  pictures,  as  there  is  on  the  Scotch  hiils  when  the 
heather  is  out.  And  so  too  there  is  plenty  of  intensity 
in  his  romantic  situations ;  but  it  is  the  intensity  of 
simple,  natural,  unsophisticated,  hardy,  and  manly  charac- 
ters. But  as  for  subtleties  and  fine  shades  of  feeling  in 
his  poems,  or  anything  like  the  manifold  harmonies  of  the 
richer  arts,  they  are  not  to  be  found,  or,  if  such 
complicated  shading  is  to  be  found — and  it  is  perhaps 
attempted  in  some  faint  measure  in  The  Bridal  of  Trier- 
main,  the  poem  in  which  Scott  tried  to  pass  himself  off 
for  Erskine, — it  is  only  at  the  expense  of  the  higher 
qualities  of  his  romantic  poetry,  that  even  in  this  small 
measure  it  is  supplied.  Again,  there  is  no  rich  music  in 
his  verse.  It  is  its  rapid  onset,  its  hurrying  strength, 
which  so  fixes  it  in  the  mind. 

It  was  not  till  1808,  three  years  after  the  publication  of 
The  Lay,  that  Marmion,  Scott's  greatest  poem,  was  pub- 
lished.  But  I  may  as  well  say  what  seems  necessary  of  that 
and  his  other  poems,  while  I  am  on  the  subject  of  his 
poetry.  Marmion  has  all  the  advantage  over  The  Lay  of 
the  Last  Minstrel  that  a  coherent  story  told  with  force  and 
fulness,  and  concerned  with  the  same  class  of  subjects  as 
The  Lay,  must  have  over  a  confused  and  ill-managed 
legend,  the  only  original  purpose  of  which  was  to  serve 
as  the  opportunity  for  a  picture  of  Border  life  and  strife. 
Scott's  poems  have  sometimes  been  depreciated  as  mere 


T.]  SCOTT'S  MATDEEB  POEMS.  63 

novelettes  in  verse,  and  I  think  that  some  of  them  may  be 
more  or  less  liable  to  this  criticism.  For  instance,  The 
Lady  of  the  Lake,  with  the  exception  of  two  or  three 
brilliant  passages,  has  always  seemed  to  me  more  of  a  ver- 
sified novelette, — without  the  higher  and  broader  character- 
istics of  Scott's  prose  novels — than  of  a  poem.  I  suppose 
what  one  expects  from  a  poem  as  distinguished  from  a 
romance — even  though  the  poem  incorporates  a  story — is 
that  it  should  not  rest  for  its  chief  interest  on  the  mere 
development  of  the  story ;  but  rather  that  the  narrative 
should  be  quite  subordinate  to  that  insight  into  the  deeper 
side  of  life  and  manners,  in  expressing  which  poetry  has 
so  great  an  advantage  over  prose.  Of  The  Lay  and  Mat- 
mion  this  is  true ;  less  true  of  The  Lady  of  the  Lake,  and 
still  less  of  Rokeby,  or  The  Lord  of  the  Isles,  and  this  is 
why  The  Lay  and  Marmion  seem  so  much  superior  as 
poems  to  the  others.  They  lean  less  on  the  interest  of 
mere  incident,  more  on  that  of  romantic  feeling  and  the 
great  social  and  historic  features  of  the  day.  Marmion  was 
composed  in  great  part  in  the  saddle,  and  the  stir  of  a 
charge  of  cavalry  seems  to  be  at  the  very  core  of  it. 
"  For  myself,"  said  Scott,  writing  to  a  lady  correspondent 
at  a  time  when  he  was  in  active  service  as  a  volunteer,  "  I 
must  own  that  to  ofre  who  has,  like  myself,  la  tete  un  pen 
exaltee,  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  war  gives,  for  a 
time,  a  very  poignant  and  pleasing  sensation." l  And  you 
feel  this  all  through  Marmion  even  more  than  in  The  Lay. 
Mr.  Darwin  would  probably  say  that  Auld  Wat  of  Har- 
den had  about  as  much  responsibility  for  Marmion  as  Sir 
"Walter  himself.  "  You  will  expect,"  he  wrote  to  the  same 
lady,  who  was  personally  unknown  to  Him  at  that  time, 

1  Lookhart'g  Life  of  Scott,  ii.  1*7. 


64  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

to  see  a  person  who  had  dedicated  himself  to  literary  piu> 
suits,  and  you  will  find  me  a  rattle-skulled,  half-lawyer, 
half-sportsman,  through  whose  head  a  regiment  of  horse 
has  been  exercising  since  he  was  five  years  old."  *  And  what 
Scott  himself  felt  in  relation  to  the  martial  elements  of  his 
poetry,  soldiers  in  the  field  felt  with  equal  force.  "  In  the 
course  of  the  day  when  The  Lady  of  the  Lake  first  reached 
Sir  Adam  Fergusson,  he  was  posted  with  his  company 
on  a  point  of  ground  exposed  to  the  enemy's  artillery,  some- 
where no  doubt  on  the  lines  of  Torres  Vedras.  The  men 
were  ordered  to  lie  prostrate  on  the  ground ;  while  they 
kept  that  attitude,  the  captain,  kneeling  at  the  head,  read 
aloud  the  description  of  the  battle  in  Canto  VI.,  and  the 
listening  soldiers  only  interrupted  him  by  a  joyous  huzza 
when  the  French  shot  struck  the  bank  close  above  them." ' 
It  is  not  often  that  martial  poetry  has  been  put  to  such  a 
test ;  but  we  can  well  understand  with  what  rapture  a 
Scotch  force  lying  on  the  ground  to  shelter  from  the  French 
fire,  would  enter  into  such  passages  as  the  following : — 

"Their  light-arm'd  archers  far  and  near 

Survey5  d  the  tangled  ground, 
Their  centre  ranks,  with  pike  and  spear, 

A  twilight  forest  frown'd, 
Their  barbed  horsemen,  in  the  rear, 

The  stern  battalia  crown'd. 
No  cymbal  clash'd,  no  clarion  rang, 

Still  were  the  pipe  and  drum ; 
Save  heavy  tread,  and  armour's  clang, 

The  eullen  march  was  dumb. 
There  breathed  no  wind  their  crests  to  shake, 

Or  wave  their  flags  abroad ; 
Scarce  the  frail  aspen  seem'd  to  quake, 

That  shadowM  o'er  their  road. 

1  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  ii.  259. 
*  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  iiL  827. 


v.]  SCOTT'S  MATUBER  POEMS.  55 

Their  vanward  scouts  no  tidings  bring, 

Can  rouse  no  lurking  foe, 
Nor  spy  a  trace  of  living  thing 

Save  when  they  stirr'd  the  roe  j 
The  host  moves  like  a  deep-sea  wave, 
Where  rise  no  rocks  its  power  to  brave, 

High-swelling,  dark,  and  slow. 
The  lake  is  pass'd,  and  now  they  gain 
A  narrow  and  a  broken  plain, 
Before  the  Trosach's  rugged  jaws, 
And  here  the  horse  and  spearmen  pause, 
While,  to  explore  the  dangerous  glen, 
Dive  through  the  pass  the  archer-men. 

"  At  once  there  rose  so  wild  a  yell 

Within  that  dark  and  narrow  dell, 

As  all  the  fiends  from  heaven  that  fell 

Had  peal'd  the  banner-cry  of  Hell ! 
Forth  from  the  pass,  in  tumult  driven, 
Like  chaff  before  the  wind  of  heaven, 

The  archery  appear ; 
For  life!  for  life  !  their  plight  they  pi y 
And  shriek,  and  shout,  and  battle  cry 
And  plaids  and  bonnets  waving  high , 
And  broadswords  flashing  to  the  sky, 
Are  maddening  in  the  rear. 

Onward  they  drive,  in  dreadful  race, 
Pursuers  and  pursued j 

Before  that  tide  of  flight  and  chase, 

How  shall  it  keep  its  rooted  place, 
The  spearmen's  twilight  wood  ? 

Down,  down,  cried  Mar,  '  your  lances  dxwi. 
Bear  back  both  friend  and  foe  t  * 

Like  reeds  before  the  tempest's  frown, 

That  serried  grove  of  lances  brown 
At  once  lay  levell'd  low ; 

And,  closely  shouldering  side  to  side, 

The  bristling  ranks  the  onset  bide, — 

'We'll  quell  the  savage  mountaineer, 
As  their  Tinchel  cows  the  game ! 

They  came  as  fleet  as  forest  deer, 
We'll  drive  them  back  aa  tame.* " 


56  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

But  admirable  in  its  stern  and  deep  excitement  as 
that  is,  the  battle  of  Flodden  in  Marmion  passes  it  in 
vigour,  and  constitutes  perhaps  the  most  perfect  de- 
scription of  war  by  one  who  was — almost — both  poet  and 
warrior,  which  the  English  language  contains. 

And  Marmion  registers  the  high- water  mark  of  Scott's 
poetical  power,  not  only  in  relation  to  the  painting  of 
war,  but  in  relation  to  the  painting  of  nature.  Critics 
from  the  beginning  onwards  have  complained  of  the 
six  introductory  epistles,  as  breaking  the  unity  of  the 
story.  But  I  cannot  see  that  the  remark  has  weight.  No 
poem  is  written  for  those  who  read  it  as  they  do  a  novel — 
merely  to  follow  the  interest  of  the  story ;  or  if  any  poem 
be  written  for  such  readers,  it  deserves  to  die.  On  such 
a  principle — which  treats  a  poem  as  a  mere  novel  and 
nothing  else, — you  might  object  to  Homer  that  he  in- 
terrupts the  battle  so  often  to  dwell  on  the  origin  of 
the  heroes  who  are  waging  it ;  or  to  Byron  that  he 
deserts  Childe  Harold  to  meditate  on  the  rapture  of 
solitude.  To  my  mind  the  ease  and  frankness  of  these 
confessions  of  the  author's  recollections  give  a  picture 
of  his  life  and  character  while  writing  Marmion, 
which  adds  greatly  to  its  attraction  as  a  poem.  You 
have  a  picture  at  once  not  only  of  the  scenery,  but  of 
the  mind  in  which  that  scenery  is  mirrored,  and  are 
brought  back  frankly,  at  fit  intervals,  from  the  one  to  the 
other,  in  the  mode  best  adapted  to  help  you  to  appreciate 
the  relation  of  the  poet  to  the  poem.  At  least  if 
Milton's  various  interruptions  of  a  much  more  ambitious 
theme,  to  muse  upon  his  own  qualifications  or  disqualifi- 
cations for  the  task  he  had  attempted,  be  not  artistic 
mistakes — and  I  never  heard  of  any  one  who  thoughts 
them  so — I  cannot  see  any  reason  why  Scott'a  periodic 


v.]  SCOTT'S  MATURES  POEMS.  67 

recurrence  to  his  own  personal  history  should  be  artistic 
mistakes  either.  If  Scott's  reverie  was  less  lofty  than 
Milton's,  so  also  was  his  story.  It  seems  to  me  as 
fitting  to  describe  the  relation  between  the  poet  and  his 
theme  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other.  What  can  be 
more  truly  a  part  of  Marmion,  as  a  poem,  though  not  as 
a  story,  than  that  introduction  to  the  first  canto  in  which 
Scott  expresses  his  passionate  sympathy  with  the  high 
national  feeling  of  the  moment,  in  his  tribute  to  Pitt  and 
Fox,  and  then  reproaches  himself  for  attempting  so  great 
a  subject  and  returns  to  what  he  calls  his  "  rude  legend," 
the  very  essence  of  which  was,  however,  a  passionate 
appeal  to  the  spirit  of  national  independence  ?  What  can 
be  more  germane  to  the  poem  than  the  delineation  of  the 
strength  the  poet  had  derived  from  musing  in  the  bare 
and  rugged  solitudes  of  St.  Mary's  Lake,  in  the  intro- 
duction to  the  second  canto  ?  Or  than  the  striking  auto- 
biographical study  of  his  own  infancy  which  I  have  before 
extracted  from  the  introduction  to  the  third  ?  It  seems 
to  me  that  Marmion  without  these  introductions  would 
be  like  the  hills  which  border  Yarrow,  without  the  stream 
and  lake  in  which  they  are  reflected. 

Never  at  all  events  in  any  later  poem  was  Scott's  touch 
as  a  mere  painter  so  terse  and  strong.  What  a  picture 
of  a  Scotch  winter  is  given  in  these  few  lines : — 

"  The  sheep  before  the  pinching  heaven 
To  shelter'd  dale  and  down  are  driven, 
Where  yet  some  faded  herbage  pines, 
And  yet  a  watery  sunbeam  shines  t 
In  meek  despondency  they  eye 
The  withered  sward  and  wintry  sky, 
And  from  beneath  their  summer  hill 
Stray  sadly  by  Glenkinnon's  rill." 

Again,  if  Scott  is  ever  Homeric  (which  I  cannot  think 
E  5 


68  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [OHAK 

he  often  is,  in  spite  of  Sir  Francis  Doyle's  able  criticism, — 
(he  is  too  short,  too  sharp,  and  too  eagerly  bent  on  his 
rugged  way,  for  a  poet  who  is  always  delighting  to  find 
loopholes,  even  in  battle,  from  which  to  look  out  upon  the 
great  story  of  human  nature),  he  is  certainly  nearest  to 
it  in  such  a  passage  as  this : — 

"  The  Isles-men  carried  at  their  backs 
The  ancient  Danish  battle-axe. 
They  raised  a  wild  and  wondering  cry 
As  with  his  guide  rode  Marmion  by. 
Load  were  their  clamouring  tongues,  as  whan 
The  clanging  sea-fowl  leave  the  fen, 
And,  with  their  cries  discordant  mix*d, 
Grumbled  and  yell'd  the  pipes  betwixt." 

In  hardly  any  of  Scott's  poetry  do  we  find  much  01 
what  is  called  the  curiosa  felicitas  of  expression, — the 
magic  use  of  words,  as  distinguished  from  the  mere  general 
effect  of  vigour,  purity,  and  concentration  of  purpose. 
But  in  Marmion  occasionally  we  do  find  such  a  use. 
Take  this  description,  for  instance,  of  the  Scotch  tents 
near  Edinburgh : — 

"  A  thousand  did  I  say  P    I  ween 
Thousands  on  thousands  there  were  seen, 
That  chequer' d  all  the  heath  between 

The  streamlet  and  the  town ; 
In  crossing  ranks  extending  far, 
Forming  a  camp  irregular ; 
Oft  giving  way  where  still  there  stood 
Borne  relics  of  the  old  oak  wood, 
That  darkly  huge  did  intervene, 
And  tamed  the  glaring  white  with  green  >• 
In  these  extended  lines  there  lay 
A  martial  kingdom's  vast  array." 

The  line  I  have  italicized  seems  to  me  to  have  more  of 
the  poet's  special  magic  of  expression  than  is  at  all  usual 


v.]  SCOTT'S  MATURER  POEMS.  & 

•with  Scott.  The  conception  of  the  peaceful  green  oak- 
wood  taming  the  glaring  white  of  the  tented  field,  is  as 
fine  in  idea  as  it  is  in  relation  to  the  effect  of  the  mere 
colour  on  the  eye.  Judge  Scott's  poetry  "by  whatever  test 
you  will — whether  it  be  a  test  of  that  which  is  peculiar 
to  it,  its  glow  of  national  feeling,  its  martial  ardour,  its 
swift  and  rugged  simplicity,  or  whether  it  be  a  test  of 
that  which  is  common  to  it  with  most  other  poetry,  its 
attraction  for  all  romantic  excitements,  its  special  feeling 
for  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  war,  its  love  of  light 
and  colour — and  tested  either  way,  Marmion  will  remain 
his  finest  poem.  The  battle  of  Hodden  Field  touches  his 
highest  point  in  its  expression  of  stern  patriotic  feeling, 
in  its  passionate  love  of  daring,  and  in  the  force  and 
swiftness  of  its  movement,  no  less  than  in  the  brilliancy 
of  its  romantic  interests,  the  charm  of  its  picturesque 
detail,  and  the  glow  of  its  scenic  colouring.  No  poet  ever 
equalled  Scott  in  the  description  of  wild  and  simple  scenes 
and  the  expression  of  wild  and  simple  feelings.  But  I 
have  said  enough  now  of  his  poetry,  in  which,  good  as  it 
is,  Scott's  genius  did  not  reach  its  highest  point.  The 
hurried  tramp  of  his  somewhat  monotonous  metre,  is  apt 
to  weary  the  ears  of  men  who  do  not  find  their  sufficient 
happiness,  as  he  did,  in  dreaming  of  the  wild  and  daring 
enterprises  of  his  loved  Border-land.  The  very  quality 
in  his  verse  which  makes  it  seize  so  powerfully  on  the 
imaginations  of  plain,  bold,  adventurous  men,  often  makes 
it  hammer  fatiguingly  against  the  brain  of  those  who 
need  the  relief  of  a  wider  horizon  and  a  richer  world. 


CHAPTER  VL 

COMPANIONS   AND    FRIENDS. 

I  HAVE  an  ;icipated  in  some  degree,  in  speaking  of  Scott's 
later  poetical  works,  what,  in  point  of  time  at  least,  should 
follow  some  slight  sketch  of  his  chosen  companions,  and 
of  his  occupations  in  the  first  period  of  his  married  life. 
Scott's  most  intimate  friend  for  some  time  after  he  went 
to  college,  probably  the  one  who  most  stimulated  his  ima- 
gination in  his  youth,  and  certainly  one  of  his  most  inti- 
mate friends  to  the  very  last,  was  William  Clerk,  who  was 
called  to  the  bar  on  the  same  day  as  Scott.  He  was  the 
son  of  John  Clerk  of  Eldin,  the  author  of  a  book  of  some 
celebrity  in  its  time  on  Naval  Tactics.  Even  in  the 
earliest  days  of  this  intimacy,  the  lads  who  had  been  Scott's 
fellow-apprentices  in  his  father's  office,  saw  with  some 
jealousy  his  growing  friendship  with  William  Clerk, 
and  remonstrated  with  Scott  on  the  decline  of  his 
regard  for  them,  but  only  succeeded  in  eliciting  from 
him  one  of  those  outbursts  of  peremptory  frankness  which 
anything  that  he  regarded  as  an  attempt  to  encroach  on 
his  own  interior  liberty  of  choice  always  provoked.  "  I 
will  never  cut  any  man,"  he  said,  "  unless  I  detect  r!iim  in 
scoundrelism,  but  I  know  not  what  right  any  of  you  have 
to  interfere  with  my  choice  of  my  company.  As  it  is,  I 
fairly  own  that  though  I  like  many  of  you  very  much,  and 


vi.]  COMPANIONS  AND  FRIENDS.  61 

have  long  done  so,  I  think  William  Clerk  well  worth  yon 
all  put  together."  *  Scott  never  lost  the  friendship  which 
began  with  this  eager  enthusiasm,  but  his  chief  intimacy 
with  Clerk  was  during  his  younger  days. 

In  1808  Scott  describes  Clerk  as  "a  man  of  the  most 
acute  intellects  and  powerful  apprehension,  who,  if  he 
•hould  ever  shake  loose  the  fetters  of  indolence  by  which 
he  has  been  hitherto  trammelled,  cannot  fail  to  be  dis- 
tinguished in  the  highest  degree."  Whether  for  the  reason 
suggested,  or  for  some  other,  Clerk  never  actually  gained  any 
other  distinction  so  great  as  his  friendship  with  Scott  con- 
ferred upon  him.  Probably  Scott  had  discerned  the  true 
secret  of  his  friend's  comparative  obscurity.  Even  while 
preparing  for  the  bar,  when  they  had  agreed  to  go 
on  alternate  mornings  to  each  other's  lodgings  to  read 
together,  Scott  found  it  necessary  to  modify  the  arrange- 
ment by  always  visiting  his  friend,  whom  he  usually  found 
in  bed.  It  was  William  Clerk  who  sat  for  the  picture  of 
Darsie  Latimer,  the  hero  of  Redgauntlet, —  whence  we 
should  suppose  him  to  have  been  a  lively,  generous,  sus- 
ceptible, contentious,  and  rather  helter-skelter  young  man, 
much  alive  to  the  ludicrous  in  all  situations,  very  eager  to 
see  life  in  all  its  phases,  and  somewhat  vain  of  his  power 
of  adapting  himself  equally  to  all  these  phases.  Scott 
tells  a  story  of  Clerk's  being  once  baffled — almost  for  the 
first  time — by  a  stranger  in  a  stage  coach,  who  would  not, 
or  could  not,  talk  to  him  on  any  subject,  until  at  last 
Clerk  addressed  to  him  this  stately  remonstrance,  "I 
have  talked  to  you,  my  friend,  on  all  the  ordinary  subjects 
— literature,  farming,  merchandise,  gaming,  game-laws, 
horse-races,  suits-at-law,  politics,  swindling,  blasphemy, 

»  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  i.  814 


62  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP, 

and  philosophy, — is  there  any  one  subject  that  you  will 
favour  me  by  opening  upon  t "  "  Sir,"  replied  the  inscru- 
table stranger,  "  can  you  say  anything  clever  about  '  bend- 
leather  ?  " l  No  doubt  this  superficial  familiarity  with  e 
vast  number  of  subjects  was  a  great  fascination  to  Scott, 
and  a  great  stimulus  to  his  own  imagination.  To  the 
last  he  held  the  same  opinion  of  his  friend's  latent  powers. 
"To  my  thinking,"  he  wrote  in  his  diary  in  1825,  "I 
never  met  a  man  of  greater  powers,  of  more  complete 
information  on  all  desirable  subjects."  But  in  youth  at 
least  Clerk  seems  to  have  had  what  Sir  Walter  calls  a 
characteristic  Edinburgh  complaint,  the  "itch  for  dis- 
putation," and  though  he  softened  this  down  in  later  life, 
he  had  always  that  slight  contentiousness  of  bias  which 
enthusiastic  men  do  not  often  heartily  like,  and  which  may 
have  prevented  Scott  from  continuing  to  the  full  the 
close  intimacy  of  those  earlier  years.  Yet  almost  his 
last  record  of  a  really  delightful  evening,  refers  to  a 
bachelor's  dinner  given  by  Mr.  Clerk,  who  remained 
unmarried,  as  late  as  1827,  after  all  Sir  Walter's  worst 
troubles  had  come  upon  him.  "  In  short,"  says  the  diary, 
"  we  really  laughed,  and  real  laughter  is  as  rare  as  real 
tears.  I  must  say,  too,  there  was  a  heart,  a  kindly  feeling 
prevailed  over  the  party.  Can  London  give  such  a 
dinner  ? "  *  It  is  clear  ,then,  that  Clerk's  charm  for  his 
friend  survived  to  the  last,  and  that  it  was  not  the  mere 
inexperience  of  boyhood,  which  made  Scott  esteem  him 
so  highly  in  his  early  days. 

If  Clerk  pricked,  stimulated,  and  sometimes  badgered  Scott, 
another  of  his  friends  who  became  more  and  more  intimate 
with  him,  as  life  went  on,  and  who  died  before  him,  always 

1  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  iii.  344, 
f  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  iz.  75. 


TI. J  COMPANIONS  AND  FRIENDS.  63 

soothed  him,  partly  by  his  gentleness,  partly  by  his  almost 
feminine  dependence.  This  was  William  Erskine,  also  a 
barrister,  and  son  of  an  Episcopalian  clergyman  in  Perthshire, 
— to  whose  influence  it  is  probably  due  that  Scott  himself 
always  read  the  English  Church  service  in  his  own  country- 
house,  and  does  not  appear  to  have  retained  the  Pres- 
byterianism  into  which  he  was  born.  Erskine,  who  was 
afterwards  raised  to  the  Bench  as  Lord  Kinnedder — a  dis- 
tinction which  he  did  not  survive  for  many  months — was 
a  good  classic,  a  man  of  fine,  or,  as  some  of  his  com- 
panions thought,  of  almost  superfine  taste.  The  style 
apparently  for  which  he  had  credit  must  have  been  a  some- 
what mimini-pimini  style,  if  we  may  judge  by  Scott's 
attempt  in  Tlie  Bridal  of  Triermain,  to  write  in  a  manner 
which  he  intended  to  be  attributed  to  his  friend. 
Erskine  was  left  a  widower  in  middle  life,  and  Scott  used 
to  accuse  him  of  philandering  with  pretty  women, — » 
mode  of  love-making  which  Scott  certainly  contrived  t« 
render  into  verse,  in  painting  Arthur's  love-making  to 
Lucy  in  that  poem.  It  seems  that  some  absolutely  false 
accusation  brought  against  Lord  Kinnedder,  of  an  intrigue 
with  a  lady  with  whom  he  had  been  thus  philandering, 
broke  poor  Erskine's  heart,  during  his  first  year  as  a  Judge. 
"The  Counsellor  (as  Scott  always  called  him)  was," 
says  Mr.  Lockhart,  "  a  little  man  of  feeble  make,  who 
seemed  unhappy  when  his  pony  got  beyond  a  footpace, 
and  had  never,  I  should  suppose,  addicted  himself  to  any 
out  of  door's  sports  whatever.  He  would,  I  fancy,  as  soon 
have  thought  of  slaying  his  own  mutton  as  of  handling  a 
fowling-piece ;  he  used  to  shudder  when  he  saw  a  party 
equipped  for  coursing,  as  if  murder  was  in  the  wind ;  but 
the  cool,  meditative  angler  was  in  his  eyes  the  abomination 
of  abominations.  His  small  elegant  features,  hectic  cheeh 


64  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAT. 

and  Boft  hazel  eyes,  were  the  index  of  the  quick,  sensitive, 
gentle  spirit  within."  "  He  would  dismount  to  lead  hi* 
horse  down  what  his  friend  hardly  perceived  to  be  a 
descent  at  all ;  grew  pale  at  a  precipice ;  and,  unlike  the 
white  lady  of  Avenel,  would  go  a  long  way  round  for  a 
bridge."  He  shrank  from  general  society,  and  lived  in 
closer  intimacies,  and  his  intimacy  with  Scott  was  of  the 
closest.  He  was  Scott's*  confidant  in  all  literary  matters, 
and  his  advice  was  oftener  followed  on  questions  of  style 
and  form,  and  of  literary  enterprise,  than  that  of  any  other 
of  Scott's  friends.  It  is  into  Erskine's  mouth  that  Scott 
puts  the  supposed  exhortation  to  himself  to  choose  more 
classical  subjects  for  his  poems : — 

" '  Approach  those  masters  o'er  whose  tomb 
Immortal  laurels  ever  bloom  ; 
Instructive  of  the  feebler  bard, 
Still  from  the  grave  their  voice  is  heard ; 
From  them,  and  from  the  paths  they  show*d, 
Choose  honour'd  guide  and  practised  road  j 
Nor  ramble  on  through  brake  and  maze, 
With  harpers  rude  of  barbarous  dayg." 

And  It  is  to  Erskine  that  Scott  replies, — 
"  For  me,  thus  nurtured,  dost  thou  ask 
The  classic  poet's  well-conn'd  task  ? 
Nay,  Erskine,  nay, — on  the  wild  hill 
Let  the  wild  heath-bell  flourish  still  j 
Cherish  the  tulip,  prune  the  vine, 
But  freely  let  the  woodbine  twine, 
And  leave  untrimm'd  the  eglantine : 
Nay,  my  friend,  nay, — since  oft  thy  praise 
Hath  given  fresh  vigour  to  my  lays  j 
Since  oft  thy  judgment  could  refine 
My  flatten'd  thought  or  cumbrous  line^ 
Still  kind,  as  is  thy  wont,  attend, 
And  in  the  minstrel  spare  the  friend ! " 

It  WHS  Erskine,  too,  as  Scott  expressly  state*  In  hit 


7i.J  COMPANIONS  AND  FRIENDS.  66 

Introduction  to  the  Chronicles  of  the  Canongate,  who 
reviewed  with  fax  too  much  partiality  the  Tales  of  my 
Landlord,  in  the  Quarterly  Review,  for  January,  1817, — a 
review  unjustifiably  included  among  Scott's  own  critical 
essays,  on  the  very  insufficient  ground  that  the  MS. 
reached  Murray  in  Scott's  own  handwriting.  There  can, 
however,  he  no  doubt  at  all  that  Scott  copied  out  his  friend's 
MS.,  in  order  to  increase  the  mystification  which  he  so 
much  enjoyed  as  to  the  authorship  of  his  variously  named 
series  of  tales.  Possibly  enough,  too,  he  may  have  drawn 
Erskine's  attention  to  the  evidence  which  justified  his 
sketch  of  the  Puritans  in  Old  Mortality,  evidence  which 
he  certainly  intended  at  one  time  to  embody  in  a  reply  of 
his  own  to  the  adverse  criticism  on  that  book.  But  though 
Erekine  was  Scott's  alter  ego  for  literary  purposes,  it  is 
certain  that  Erskine,  with  his  fastidious,  not  to  say  finical, 
sense  of  honour,  would  never  have  lent  his  name  to  cover 
a  puff  written  by  Scott  of  his  own  works.  A  man  who, 
in  Scott's  own  words,  died  "  a  victim  to  a  hellishly  false 
story,  or  rather,  I  should  say,  to  the  sensibility  of  his  own 
nature,  which  could  not  endure  even  the  shadow  of  re- 
proach,— like  the  ermine,  which  is  said  to  pine  if  its  fur  is 
soiled,"  was  not  the  man  to  father  a  puff,  even  by  his  dearest 
friend,  on  that  friend's  own  creations.  Erskine  was  indeed 
almost  feminine  in  his  love  of  Scott ;  but  he  was  feminine 
with  all  the  irritable  and  scrupulous  delicacy  of  a  man 
who  could  not  derogate  from  his  own  ideal  of  right,  even 
to  serve  a  friend. 

Another  friend  of  Scott's  earlier  days  was  John  Leyden, 
Scott's  most  efficient  coadjutor  in  the  collection  of  the 
Border  Minstrelsy, — that  eccentric  genius,  marvellous  lin- 
guist, and  good-natured  bear,  who,  bred  a  shepherd  in  one 
of  the  wildest  valleys  of  Roxburghshire,  had  accumulated 
4 


66  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CH*». 

before  the  age  of  nineteen  an  amount  of  teaming  which 
confounded  the  Edinburgh  Professors,  and  who,  without 
any  previous  knowledge  of  medicine,  prepared  himself  to 
pass  an  examination  for  the  medical  profession,  at  six 
months'  notice  of  the  offer  of  an  assistant-surgeoncy  in  the 
East  India  Company.  It  was  Leyden  who  once  walked 
between  forty  and  fifty  miles  and  back,  for  the  sole  pur- 
pose of  visiting  an  old  person  who  possessed  a  copy  of  a 
border  ballad  that  was  wanting  for  the  Minstrelsy.  Scott 
was  sitting  at  dinner  one  day  with  company,  when  he 
heard  a  sound  at  a  distance,  "  like  that  of  the  whistling  of 
a  tempest  through  the  torn  rigging  of  a  vessel  which  scuds 
before  it.  The  sounds  increased  as  they  approached  more 
near ;  and  Leyden  (to  the  great  astonishment  of  such  of 
the  guests  as  did  not  know  him)  burst  into  the  room 
chanting  the  desiderated  ballad  with  the  most  enthusiastic 
gesture,  and  all  the  energy  of  what  he  used  to  call  the 
saw-tones  of  his  voice."1  Leyden's  great  antipathy  was 
Ritson,  an  ill-conditioned  antiquarian,  of  vegetarian  prin- 
ciples, whom  Scott  alone  of  all  the  antiquarians  of  that 
day  could  manage  to  tame  and  tolerate.  In  Scott's 
absence  one  day,  during  his  early  married  life  at  Lass- 
wade,  Mrs.  Scott  inadvertently  offered  Riteon  a  slice  of  beef, 
when  that  strange  man  burst  out  in  such  outrageous  tones 
at  what  he  chose  to  suppose  an  insult,  that  Leyden  threat- 
ened to  "  thraw  his  neck  "  if  he  were  not  silent,  a  threat 
which  frightened  Ritson  out  of  the  cottage.  On  another 
occasion,  simply  in  order  to  tease  Ritson,  Leyden  com- 
plained that  the  meat  was  overdone,  and  sent  to  the 
kitchen  for  a  plate  of  literally  raw  beef,  and  ate  it  up 
solely  for  the  purpose  of  shocking  his  crazy  rival  in  anti- 

1  Lockharl'B  Life  of  Scott,  1L  66. 


?b]  COMPANIONS  AND  FBIENDS.  87 

quarian  research.  Poor  Leyden  did  not  long  survive  his 
experience  of  the  Indian  climate.  And  with  him  died  a 
passion  for  knowledge  of  a  very  high  order,  combined 
with  no  inconsiderable  poetical  gifts.  It  was  in  the  study 
of  such  eccentric  beings  as  Leyden  that  Scott  doubtless 
acquired  his  taste  for  painting  the  humours  of  Scotch 
character. 

Another  wild  shepherd,  and  wilder  genius  among  Scott's 
associates,  not  only  in  those  earlier  days,  but  to  the  end,  was 
that  famous  Ettrick  Shepherd,  James  Hogg,  who  was 
always  quarrelling  with  his  brother  poet,  as  far  as  Scott  per- 
mitted it,  and  making  it  up  again  when  his  better  feelings 
returned.  In  a  shepherd's  dress,  and  with  hands  fresh 
from  sheep-shearing,  he  came  to  dine  for  the  first  time  with 
Scott  in  Castle  Street,  and  finding  Mrs.  Scott  lying  on  the 
sofa,  immediately  stretched  himself  at  full  length  on  an- 
other  sofa ;  for,  as  he  explained  afterwards,  "  I  thought  I 
could  not  do  better  than  to  imitate  the  lady  of  the  house." 
At  dinner,  as  the  wine  passed,  he  advanced  from  "Mr.  Scott," 
to  "Shirra"  (Sheriff),  "Scot*/'  "Walter,"  and  finally 
"  Wattie,"  till  at  supper  he  convulsed  every  one  by  address- 
ing Mrs.  Scott  familiarly  as  "  Charlotte."  l  Hogg  wrote 
certain  short  poems,  the  beauty  of  which  in  their  kind 
Sir  Walter  himself  never  approached  ;  but  he  was  a  man 
almost  without  self-restraint  or  self-knowledge,  though 
he  had  a  great  deal  of  self-importance,  and  hardly  knew 
how  much  he  owed  to  Scott's  magnanimous  and  ever- 
forbearing  kindness,  or  if  he  did,  felt  the  weight  of  grati- 
tude a  burden  on  his  heart.  Very  different  was  William 
Laidlaw,  a  farmer  on  the  banks  of  the  Yarrow,  always  Scott's 
Mend,  and  afterwards  his  manager  at  Abbotsford,  through 

>  Lockhart'a  Life  of  Scott,  ii.  1684). 


68  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP.TT. 

whose  hand  he  dictated  many  of  his  novels.  Mr.  laidlaw 
was  one  of  Scott's  humbler  friends, — a  class  of  friendg 
with  whom  he  seems  always  to  have  felt  more  completely 
at  his  ease  than  any  others — who  gave  at  least  as  much  as 
he  received,  one  of  those  wise,  loyal,  and  thoughtful  men 
in  a  comparatively  modest  position  of  life,  whom  Scott 
delighted  to  trust,  and  never  trusted  without  finding  hia 
tiust  justified.  In  addition  to  these  Scotch  friends,  Scott 
had  made,  even  before  the  publication  of  his  Border  Min- 
etrelsy,  not  a  few  in  London  or  its  neighbourhood, — of 
whom  the  most  important  at  this  time  was  the  grey-eyed, 
hatchet-faced,  courteous  George  Ellis,  as  Leyden  described 
him,  the  author  of  various  works  on  ancient  English  poetry 
and  romance,  who  combined  with  a  shrewd,  satirical  vein, 
and  a  great  knowledge  of  the  world,  political  as  well  as 
literary,  an  exquisite  taste  in  poetry,  and  a  warm  heart. 
Certainly  Ellis's  criticism  on  his  poems  was  the  truest  and 
best  that  Scott  ever  received  ;  and  had  he  lived  to  read  his 
novels, — only  one  of  which  was  published  before  Ellis's 
death, — he  might  have  given  Scott  more  useful  help  thai* 
either  Ballantyne  or  even  Erskine. 


CHAPTER  VIL 

FIRST   COUNTRY   HOMES. 

So  completely  was  Scott  by  nature  an  out-of-doors  man 
that  lie  cannot  be  adequately  known  either  through  his 
poems  or  through  his  friends,  without  also  knowing  his 
external  surroundings  and  occupations.  His  first  country 
home  was  the  cottage  at  Lasswade,  on  the  Esk,  about  six 
miles  from  Edinburgh,  which  he  took  in  1798,  a  few  months 
after  his  marriage,  and  retained  till  1804.  It  was  a  pretty 
little  cottage,  in  the  beautification  of  which  Scott  felt 
great  pride,  and  where  he  exercised  himself  in  the  small 
beginnings  of  those  tastes  for  altering  and  planting  which 
grew  so  rapidly  upon  him,  and  at  last  enticed  him  into 
castle-building  and  tree-culture  on  a  dangerous,  not  tc 
say,  ruinous  scale.  One  of  Scott's  intimate  friends, 
the  master  of  Rokeby,  by  whose  house  and  neighbourhood 
the  poem  of  that  name  was  suggested,  Mr.  Morritt,  walked 
along  the  Esk  in  1808  with  Scott  four  years  after  he  had 
left  it,  and  was  taken  out  of  his  way  to  see  it.  "  I  have 
been  bringing  you,"  he  said,  "where  there  is  little  enough 
to  be  seen,  only  that  Scotch  cottage,  but  though  not  worth 
looking  at,  I  could  not  pass  it.  It  was  our  first  country 
house  when  newly  married,  and  many  a  contrivance  it  had 
to  make  it  comfortable.  I  made  a  dining-table  for  it  with 
my  own  hands.  Look  at  these  two  miserable  willow-trees 


70  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAR 

on  either  side  the  gate  into  the  enclosure  ;  they  are  tied 
together  at  the  top  to  be  an  arch,  and  a  cross  made  of  two 
sticks  over  them  is  not  yet  decayed.  To  be  sure  it  is  not 
much  of  a  lion  to  show  a  stranger ;  but  I  wanted  to  see  it 
again  myself,  for  I  assure  you  that  after  I  had  constructed 
it,  mamma  (Mrs.  Scott)  and  I  both  of  us  thought  it  so  fine. 
we  turned  out  to  see  it  by  moonlight,  and  walked  back- 
wards from  it  to  the  cottage-door,  in  admiration  of  our  own 
magnificence  and  its  picturesque  effect."  It  was  here  at  Lass- 
wade  that  he  bought  the  phaeton,  which  was  the  first 
wheeled  carriage  that  ever  penetrated  to  Liddesdale,  a  feat 
which  it  accomplished  in  the  first  August  of  this  century. 
When  Scott  left  the  cottage  at  Lasswade  in  1804,  it  was 
to  take  up  hia  country  residence  in  Selkirkshire,  of  which 
he  had  now  been  made  sheriff,  in  a  beautiful  little  house 
belonging  to  his  cousin,  Major-General  Sir  James  Eussell, 
and  known  to  all  the  readers  of  Scott's  poetry  as  the 
Ashestiel  of  the  Marmion  introductions.  The  Glenkinnon 
brook  dashes  in  a  deep  ravine  through  the  grounds  to  join 
the  Tweed ;  behind  the  house  rise  the  hills  which  divide 
the  Tweed  from  the  Yarrow ;  and  an  easy  ride  took  Scott 
into  the  scenery  of  the  Yarrow.  The  description  of 
Ashestiel,  and  the  brook  which  runs  through  it,  in  the 
introduction  to  the  first  canto  of  Marmion  is  indeed  one 
of  the  finest  specimens  of  Scott  s  descriptive  poetry : — 

"  November's  sky  is  chill  and  drear, 
November's  leaf  is  red  and  sear; 
Late,  gazing  down  the  eteepy  linn, 
That  hems  our  little  garden  in, 
Low  in  its  dark  and  narrow  glen, 
You  scarce  the  rivulet  might  ken, 
So  thir>k  the  tangled  greenwood  grew, 
So  feebla  trill'd  the  streamlet  through  | 
Now,  murmuring  hoarse,  and  frequent  aeer    . 
Through  bush  and  briar  no  longer  green, 


FIEST  COUNTRY  HOMES.  n 

An  angry  brook,  it  sweeps  the  glade, 
Brawls  over  rock  and  wild  cascade, 
And,  foaming  brown  with  doubled  speed, 
Harries  its  waters  to  the  Tweed." 

Selkirk  was  his  nearest  town,  and  that  was  seven  miles 
from  Ashestiel;  and  even  his  nearest  neighbour  was  at 
Yair,  a  few  miles  off  lower  down  the  Tweed,  —  Yair  of 
which  he  wrote  in  another  of  the  introductions  to 
Mannion : — 

"  From  Yair,  which  hills  so  closely  bind 
Scarce  can  the  Tweed  his  passage  find, 
Though  much  he  fret,  and  chafe,  and  toil, 
Till  all  his  eddying  currents  boil." 

At  Ashestiel  it  was  one  of  his  greatest  delights  to  look 
after  his  relative's  woods,  and  to  dream  of  planting  and 
thinning  woods  of  his  own,  a  dream  only  too  amply 
realized.  It  was  here  that  a  new  kitchen-range  was  sunk 
for  some  time  in  the  ford,  which  was  so  swollen  by  a  storm 
in  1805  that  the  horse  and  cart  that  brought  it  were 
themselves  with  difficulty  rescued  from  the  waters.  And 
it  was  here  that  Scott  first  entered  on  that  active  life  of 
literary  labour  in  close  conjunction  with  an  equally  active 
life  of  rural  sport,  which  gained  him  a  well-justified  repu- 
tation as  the  hardest  worker  and  the  heartiest  player  in 
the  kingdom.  At  Lasswade  Scott's  work  had  been  done 
at  night;  but  serious  headaches  made  him  change  his 
habit  at  Ashestiel,  and  rise  steadily  at  five,  lighting  his  own 
fire  in  winter.  "  Arrayed  in  his  shooting-jacket,  or  what- 
ever  dress  he  meant  to  use  till  dinner-time,  he  was  seated 
at  his  desk  by  six  o'clock,  all  his  papers  arranged  before 
him  in  the  most  accurate  order,  and  his  books  of  reference 
marshalled  around  him  on  the  floor,  while  at  least  one 
favourite  dog  lay  watching  his  eye,  just  beyond  the  line 


78  SIB  WALTER  SCOT*.  [CHAP. 

of  clrcnuivallation.  Thus,  by  the  time  the  family  assembled 
for  breakfast,  between  nine  and  ten,  he  had  done  enough, 
in  his  own  language,  '  to  break  the  neck  of  the  day's  work.' 
After  breakfast  a  couple  of  hours  more  were  given  to  his 
solitary  tasks,  and  by  noon  he  was,  as  he  used  to  say,  his 
'  own  man.'  When  the  weather  was  bad,  he  would  labour 
incessantly  all  the  morning ;  but  the  general  rule  was  to  be 
out  and  on  horseback  by  one  o'clock  at  the  latest ;  while, 
if  any  more  distant  excursion  had  been  proposed  overnight, 
he  was  ready  to  start  on  it  by  ten ;  his  occasional  rainy 
days  of  unintermitted  study,  forming,  as  he  said,  a  fund 
in  his  favour,  out  of  which  he  was  entitled  to  draw  for 
accommodation  whenever  the  sun  shone  with  special  bright- 
ness." In  his  earlier  days  none  of  his  horses  liked  to  be 
fed  except  by  their  master.  When  Brown  Adam  was 
saddled,  and  the  stable-door  opened,  the  horse  would  trot 
round  to  the  leaping-on  stone  of  his  own  accord,  to  be 
mounted,  and  was  quite  intractable  under  any  one  but 
Scott.  Scott's  life  might  well  be  fairly  divided — just  as 
history  is  divided  into  reigns — by  the  succession  of 
his  horses  and  dogs.  The  reigns  of  Captain,  Lieu- 
tenant, Brown  Adam,  Daisy,  divide  at  least  the 
period  up  to  Waterloo ;  while  the  reigns  of  Sybil 
Grey,  and  the  Covenanter,  or  Douce  Davie,  divide  the 
period  of  Scott's  declining  years.  During  the  brilliant 
period  of  the  earlier  novels  we  hear  less  of  Scott's  horses ; 
but  of  his  deerhounds  there  is  an  unbroken  succession. 
Camp,  Maida  (the  "Bevis"  of  Woodstock),  and  Nim- 
rod,  reigned  successively  between  Sir  Walter's  marriage 
and  his  death.  It  was  Camp  on  whose  death  he  relin- 
quished a  dinner  invitation  previously  accepted,  on  the 
ground  that  the  death  of  "  an  old  friend  "  rendered  him 
unwilling  to  dine  out ;  Maida  to  whom  he  erected  a  marble 


vn.]  WEST  OOU1TTBY  HOM3J8.  78 

monument,  and  Nimrod  of  whom  he  spoke  so  affect- 
ingly  as  too  good  a  dog  for  his  diminished  fortunes  during 
his  ahsence  in  Italy  on  the  last  hopeless  journey. 

Scott's  amusements  at  Ashestiel,  besides  riding,  ia  which 
he  was  fearless  to  rashness,  and  coursing,  which  was  the 
chief  form  of  sporting  in  the  neighbourhood,  comprehended 
"  burning  the  water,"  as  salmon-spearing  by  torchlight  was 
called,  in  the  course  of  which  he  got  many  a  ducking.  Mr. 
Skene  gives  an  amusing  picture  of  their  excursions  together 
from  Ashestiel  among  the  hills,  he  himself  followed  by 
a  lanky  Savoyard,  and  Scott  by  a  portly  Scotch  butlei 
— both  servants  alike  highly  sensitive  as  to  their  personal 
dignity — on  horses  which  neither  of  the  attendants  could 
sit  well.  "Scott's  heavy  lumbering  buffetier  had  pro- 
vided himself  against  the  mountain  storms  with  a  huge 
cloak,  which,  when  the  cavalcade  was  at  gallop,  streamed 
at  full  stretch  from  his  shoulders,  and  kept  napping  in  the 
other's  face,  who,  having  more  than  enough  to  do  in  pre- 
serving his  own  equilibrium,  could  not  think  of  attempting 
at  any  time  to  control  the  pace  of  his  steed,  and  had  no 
relief  but  fuming  and  vesting  at  the  sacre  manteau,  in 
language  happily  unintelligible  to  its  wearer.  Now  and 
then  some  ditch  or  turf-fence  rendered  it  indispensable  to 
adventure  on  a  leap,  and  no  farce  could  have  been  more 
amusing  than  the  display  of  politeness  which  then  occurred 
between  these  worthy  equestrians,  each  courteously  declin- 
ing in  favour  of  his  friend  the  honour  of  the  first  experi- 
ment, the  horses  fretting  impatient  beneath  them,  and 
the  dogs  clamouring  encouragement."1  Such  was  Scott's 
order  of  life  at  Ashestiel,  where  he  remained  from  1804 
to  1812.  As  to  his  literary  work  here,  it  was  enormous 

I  Lock hait 's  Life  of  Scott,  if.  268-9. 
F         4*  6 


74  BIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP.  vn. 

Besides  finishing  The  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  writing 
Marmion,  The  Lady  of  the  Lake,  part  of  The  Bridal 
of  Triermain,  and  part  of  Rokeby,  and  writing  reviews, 
he  wrote  a  Life  of  Dryden,  and  edited  his  works  anew 
with  some  care,  in  eighteen  volumes,  edited  Somers's  Col- 
lection of  Tracts,  in  thirteen  volumes,  quarto,  Sir  Ralph 
Sadler's  Life,  Letters,  and  State  Papers,  in  three  volumes, 
quarto,  Miss  Seward'e  Life  and  Poetical  Works,  The  Secret 
History  of  the  Court  of  James  I.,  in  two  volumes,  Strutfs 
Queenhoo  Hall,  in  four  volumes,  12mo.,  and  various  other 
single  volumes,  and  began  his  heavy  work  on  the  edition 
of  Swift.  This  was  the  literary  work  of  eight  years, 
during  which  he  had  the  duties  of  his  Sheriffship,  and, 
after  he  gave  up  his  practice  as  a  barrister,  the  duties  of 
his  Deputy  Clerkship  of  Session  to  discharge  regularly. 
The  editing  of  Dryden  alone  would  have  seemed  to  most 
men  of  leisure  a  pretty  full  occupation  for  these  eight 
years,  and  though  I  do  not  know  that  Scott  edited 
with  the  anxious  care  with  which  that  sort  of  work  is 
often  now  prepared,  that  he  went  into  all  the  arguments 
for  a  doubtful  reading  with  the  pains  that  Mr.  Dyce  spent 
on  the  various  readings  of  Shakespeare,  or  that  Mr. 
Spedding  spent  on  a  various  reading  of  Bacon,  yet  Scott 
did  his  work  in  a  steady,  workmanlike  manner,  which 
satisfied  the  most  fastidious  critics  of  that  day,  and  he  was 
never,  I  believe,  charged  with  hurrying  or  scamping  it. 
His  biographies  of  Swift  and  Dryden  are  plain  solid  pieces 
of  work — not  exactly  the  works  of  art  which  biographies 
have  been  made  in  our  day — not  comparable  to  Carlyle's 
studies  of  Cromwell  or  Frederick,  or,  in  point  of  art,  even 
to  the  life  of  John  Sterling,  but  still  sensible  \nd  interesting, 
•ound  in  judgment,  and  animated  in  style. 


CHAPTEE  VIIL 

REMOVAL   TO   ABBOTSFORD,    AND   LIFE   THEM. 

IN  May,  1812,  Scott  having  now  at  last  obtained  the  salary 
of  the  Clerkship  of  Session,  the  work  of  which  he  had  for 
more  than  five  years  discharged  without  pay,  indulged  him- 
self in  realizing  his  favourite  dream  of  buying  a  "mountain 
farm  "  at  Abbotsford, — five  miles  lower  down  the  Tweed 
than  his  cottage  at  Ashestiel,  which  was  now  again 
claimed  by  the  family  of  Russell, — and  migrated  thither 
with  his  household  gods.  The  children  long  remembered 
the  leave-taking  as  one  of  pure  grief,  for  the  villagers 
were  much  attached  both  to  Scott  and  to  his  wife,  who 
had  made  herself  greatly  beloved  by  her  untiring  goodness 
to  the  sick  among  her  poor  neighbours.  But  Scott  him- 
self describes  the  migration  as  a  scene  in  which  their 
neighbours  found  no  small  share  of  amusement.  "  Our 
flitting  and  removal  from  Ashestiel  baifled  all  description ; 
we  had  twenty-five  cartloads  of  the  veriest  trash  in  nature, 
besides  dogs,  pigs,  ponies,  poultry,  cows,  calves,  bare- 
headed wenches,  and  bare-breeched  boys."  * 

To  another  friend  Scott  wrote  that  the  neighbours  had 
"  been  much  delighted  with  the  procession  of  my  furni- 
ture, in  which  old  swords,  bows,  targets,  and  lances,  made 
a  very  conspicuous  show.  A  family  of  turkeys  waa 

»  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  ir.  ft. 


18  BIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

accommodated  within  the  helmet  of  some  preux  chevalier 
of  ancient  border  fame ;  and  the  very  cows,  for  aught  I 
know,  were  bearing  banners  and  muskets.  I  assure  your 
ladyship  that  this  caravan  attended  by  a  dozen  of  ragged 
rosy  peasant  children,  carrying  fishing-rods  and  spears, 
and  leading  ponies,  greyhounds,  and  spaniels,  would,  aa 
it  crossed  the  Tweed,  have  furnished  no  bad  subject  for 
the  pencil,  and  really  reminded  me  of  one  of  the  gipsy 
groups  of  Callot  upon  their  march."  * 

The  place  thus  bought  for  4000Z., — half  of  which,  ac- 
cording to  Scott's  bad  and  sanguine  habit,  was  borrowed 
from  his  brother,  and  half  raised  on  the  security  of  a  poem 
at  the  moment  of  sale  wholly  unwritten,  and  not  com- 
pleted even  when  he  removed  to  Abbotsford — "  Rokeby  " 
— became  only  too  much  of  an  idol  for  the  rest  of  Scott's 
life.  Mr.  Lockhart  admits  that  before  the  crash  came  he 
had  invested  29,0001.  in  the  purchase  of  land  alone. 
But  at  this  time  only  the  kernel  of  the  subsequent  estate 
was  bought,  in  the  shape  of  a  hundred  acres  or  rather 
more,  part  of  which  ran  along  the  shores  of  the  Tweed — 
"  a  beautiful  river  flowing  broad  and  bright  over  a  bed 
of  milk-white  pebbles,  unless  here  and  there  where  it 
darkened  into  a  deep  pool,  overhung  as  yet  only  by 
birches  and  alders."  There  was  also  a  poor  farm-house,  a 
staring  barn,  and  a  pond  so  dirty  that  it  had  hitherto  given 
the  name  of  "  Clarty  Hole  "  to  the  place  itself.  Scott  re- 
named the  place  from  the  adjoining  ford  which  was  just 
above  the  confluence  of  the  Gala  with  the  Tweed.  He  chose 
the  name  of  Abbotsford  because  the  land  had  formerly  all 
belonged  to  the  Abbots  of  Melrose, — the  ruin  of  whose 
'beautiful  abbey  was  visible  from  many  parts  of  the  little 

I  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  ir.  8. 


TOT.]    EBMOVAL  TO  ABBOTSFOBD,  AND  LIFE  THESE.    77 

property.  On  the  other  side  of  the  river  the  old  British 
barrier  called  "  the  Catrail "  was  full  in  view.  As  yet 
the  place  was  not  planted, — the  only  effort  made  in  this 
direction  by  its  former  owner,  Dr.  Douglas,  having  teen 
a  long  narrow  stripe  of  firs,  which  Scott  used  to  compare 
to  a  black  hair-comb,  and  which  gave  the  name  of  "  The 
Doctor's  Redding-Kame "  to  the  stretch  of  woods  of 
which  it  is  still  the  central  line.  Such  was  the  place 
which  he  made  it  the  too  great  delight  of  the  remainder 
of  his  life  to  increase  and  beautify,  by  spending  on  it  a 
good  deal  more  than  he  had  earned,  and  that  too  in  times 
when  he  should  have  earned  a  good  deal  more  than  he 
ought  to  have  thought  even  for  a  moment  of  spending.  The 
cottage  grew  to  a  mansion,  and  the  mansion  to  a  castle. 
The  farm  by  the  Tweed  made  him  long  for  a  farm  by 
the  Cauldshiel's  loch,  and  the  farm  by  the  Cauldshiel's 
loch  for  Thomas  the  Rhymer's  Glen ;  and  as,  at  every 
step  in  the  ladder,  his  means  of  buying  were  really  in- 
creasing— though  they  were  so  cruelly  discounted  and 
forestalled  by  this  growing  land-hunger, — Scott  never 
realized  into  what  troubles  he  was  carefully  running 
himself. 

Of  his  life  at  Abbotsford  at  a  later  period  when 
his  building  was  greatly  enlarged,  and  his  children 
grown  up,  we  have  a  brilliant  picture  from  the  pen  of 
Mr.  Lockhart.  And  though  it  does  not  belong  to  his 
first  years  at  Abbotsford,  I  cannot  do  better  than  include 
it  here  as  conveying  probably  better  than  anything  I 
could  elsewhere  find,  the  charm  of  that  ideal  life  which 
lured  Scott  on  from  one  project  to  another  in  that  scheme 
of  castle-building,  in  relation  to  which  he  confused  so 
dangerously  the  world  of  dreams  with  the  harder  world 
of  wages,  capital,  interest,  and  rent. 


78  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

"  I  remember  saying  to  William  Allan  one  mornirg.as  the 
whole  party  mustered  before  the  porch  after  breakfast,  *  A 
faithful  sketch  of  what  you  at  this  moment  see  would  be  more 
interesting  a  hundred  years  hence  than  the  grandest  so-called 
historical  picture  that  you  will  ever  exhibit  in  Somerset 
House ;'  and  my  friend  agreed  with  me  so  cordially  that  I 
often  wondered  afterwards  he  had  not  attempted  to  realize 
the  suggestion.  The  subject  ought,  however,  to  have  been 
treated  conjointly  by  him  (or  Wilkie)  and  Edwin  Landseer. 

"  It  was  a  clear,  bright  September  morning,  with  a  sharp- 
ness in  the  air  that  doubled  the  animating  influence  of  the 
sunshine,  and  all  was  in  readiness  for  a  grand  coursing  match 
on  Newark  Hill.  The  only  guest  who  had  chalked  out  other 
sport  for  himself  was  the  staunchest  of  anglers,  Mr.  Rose; 
but  he  too  was  there  on  hia  shelty,  armed  with  his  salmon- 
rod  and  landing-net,  and  attended  by  his  humorous  squire, 
Hinves,  and  Charlie  Purdie,  a  brother  of  Tom,  in  those  days 
the  most  celebrated  fisherman  of  the  district.  This  little 
group  of  Waltonians,  bound  for  Lord  Somerville's  preserve, 
remained  lounging  about  to  witness  the  start  of  the  main 
cavalcade.  Sir  Walter,  mounted  on  Sybil,  was  marshalling 
the  order  of  procession  with  a  huge  hunting-whip;  and 
among  a  dozen  frolicsome  youths  and  maidens,  who  seemed 
disposed  to  laugh  at  all  discipline,  appeared,  each  on  horse- 
back, each  as  eager  as  the  youngest  sportsman  in  the  troop, 
Sir  Humphry  Davy,  Dr.  Wollaston,  and  the  patriarch  of 
Scottish  belles  lettres,  Henry  Mackenzie.  The  Man  of  Feeling, 
however,  was  persuaded  with  some  difficulty  to  resign  his 
steed  for  the  present  to  his  faithful  negro  follower,  and  to 
join  Lady  Scott  in  the  sociable,  until  we  should  reach  the 
ground  of  our  battue.  Laidlaw,  on  a  long-tailed,  wiry 
Highlander,  yclept  Hoddin  Grey,  which  carried  him  nimbly 
and  stoutly,  although  his  feet  almost  touched  the  ground  as 
he  sat,  was  the  adjutant.  But  the  most  picturesque  figure 
was  the  illustrious  inventor  of  the  safety -lamp.  He  had  come 
for  his  favourite  sport  of  angling,  and  had  been  practising 
it  successfully  with  Rose,  his  travelling-companion,  for 
two  or  three  days  preceding  this,  but  he  had  not  pre- 
pared for  coursing  fields,  and  had  left  Charlie  Purdie's 


Tiii.J    REMOVAL  TO  ABBOTSFORD,  AND  LIFE  THESE.    79 

troop  for  Sir  Walter's  on  a  sadden  thought;  and  his 
fisherman's  costume — a  brown  hat  with  flexible  brim,  sur- 
rounded with  line  upon  line,  and  innumerable  fly-hooks, 
jack-boots  worthy  of  a  Dutch  smuggler,  and  a  fustian  surtout 
dabbled  with  the  blood  of  salmon, — made  a  fine  contrast  with 
the  smart  jackets,  white  cord  breeches,  and  well-polished 
jockey-boots  of  the  less  distinguished  cavaliers  about  him. 
Dr.  Wollaston  was  in  black,  and,  with  his  noble,  serene 
dignity  of  countenance,  might  have  passed  for  a  sporting 
archbishop.  Mr.  Mackenzie,  at  this  time  in  the  seventy- 
sixth  year  of  his  age,  with  a  white  hat  turned  up  with  green, 
green  spectacles,  green  jacket,  and  long  brown  leather 
gaiters  buttoned  upon  his  nether  anatomy,  wore  a  dog- 
whistle  round  his  neck,  and  had  all  over  the  air  of  as  reso- 
lute a  devotee  as  the  gay  captain  of  Huntiy  Burn.  Tom 
Purdie  and  his  subalterns  had  preceded  us  by  a  few  hours 
with  all  the  greyhounds  that  could  be  collected  at  Abbots- 
ford,  Darnick,  and  Melrose;  but  the  giant  Maida  had 
remained  as  his  master's  orderly,  and  now  gambolled  about 
Sibyl  Grey,  barking  for  mere  joy,  like  a  spaniel  puppy. 

"  The  order  of  march  had  been  all  settled,  and  the  sociable 
was  just  getting  under  weigh,  when  the  Lady  Anne  broke 
from  the  line,  screaming  with  laughter,  and  exclaimed, 
'  Papa !  papa !  I  know  you  could  never  think  of  going  with- 
out your  pet.'  Scott  looked  round,  and  I  rather  thinV  there 
was  a  blush  as  well  as  a  smile  upon  his  face,  when  he  per- 
ceived a  little  black  pig  frisking  about  bis  pony,  and  evi- 
dently a  self-elected  addition  to  the  party  of  the  day.  He 
tried  to  look  stern,  and  cracked  his  whip  at  the  creature,  but 
was  in  a  moment  obliged  to  join  in  the  general  cheers. 
Poor  piggy  soon  found  a  strap  round  his  neck,  and  was 
dragged  into  the  background.  Scott,  watching  the  retreat, 
repeated  with  moek  pathos  the  first  verse  of  an  old  pastoral 
song: — 

"  What  will  I  do  gin  my  hoggie  die  P 

My  joy,  my  pride,  my  hoggie  ! 
My  only  beast,  I  had  nae  mae, 
And  wow !  but  I  was  vogie ! " 


80  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAJH 

The  cheers  veit  redoubled,  and  the  squadron  moved  on.  This 
pig  had  taken,  nobody  could  tell  how,  a  most  sentimental 
attachment  to  Scott,  and  was  constantly  urging  its  preten- 
sion to  be  admitted  a  regular  member  of  his  tail,  along  witk 
the  greyhounds  and  terriers ;  but  indeed  I  remember  him 
suffering  another  summer  under  the  same  sort  of  pertinacity 
on  the  part  of  an  affectionate  hen.  I  leave  the  explanation 
for  philosophers ;  but  such  were  the  facts.  I  have  too  much 
respect  for  the  vulgarly  calumniated  donkey  to  name  him  in 
the  same  category  of  pets  with  the  pig  and  the  hen ;  but  a 
year  or  two  after  this  time,  my  wife  used  to  drive  a  couple  of 
these  animals  in  a  little  garden  chair,  and  whenever  her  father 
appeared  at  the  door  of  our  cottage,  we  were  sure  to  see 
Hannah  More  and  Lady  Morgan  (as  Anne  Scott  had  wickedly 
christened  them)  trotting  from  their  pasture  to  lay  their 
noses  over  the  paling,  and,  as  Washington  Irving  says  of 
the  old  white-haired  hedger  with  the  Parisian  snuff-box, '  to 
have  a  pleasant  crack  wi'  the  laird.' " » 

Carlyle,  in  his  criticism  on  Scott — a  criticism  which 
will  hardly,  I  think,  stand  the  test  of  criticism  in  its 
turn,  so  greatly  does  he  overdo  the  reaction  against  the  first 
excessive  appreciation  of  his  genius — adds  a  contribution 
of  his  own  to  this  charming  idyll,  in  reference  to  the 
natural  fascination  which  Scott  seemed  to  exert  over  almost 
all  dumb  creatures.  A  little  Blenheim  cocker,  "one  of  the 
smallest,  beautifullest,  and  tiniest  of  lapdogs,"  with,  which 
Carlyle  was  well  acquainted,  and  which  was  also  one  of 
the  shyest  of  dogs,  that  would  crouch  towards  his  mistress 
and  draw  back  "  with  angry  timidity  "  if  any  one  did 
but  look  at  him  admiringly,  once  met  in  the  street  "  a 
tall,  singular,  busy-looking  man,"  who  halted  by.  The 
dog  ran  towards  him  and  began  "  fawning,  frisking, 
licking  at  his  feet ;"  and  every  time  he  saw  Sir  Walter 

1  Lookhart'p  Life  of  Scott,  vi.  238—242. 


Till.]  fiEMOVAL  TO  ABBOTSFOBD,  AND  LIFE  THESE.     SI 

afterwards,  in  Edinburgh,  he  repeated  his  demonstration 
of  delight.  Thus  discriminating  was  this  fastidious  Blen- 
heim cocker  even  in  the  busy  streets  of  Edinburgh. 

And  Scott's  attraction  for  dumb  animals  was  only  a 
lesser  form  of  his  attraction  for  all  who  were  in  any 
way  dependent  on  him,  especially  his  own  servants  and 
labourers.  The  story  of  his  demeanour  towards  them  is 
one  of  the  most  touching  ever  written.  "  Sir  Walter 
speaks  to  every  man  as  if  they  were  blood-relations  "  was 
the  common  formula  in  which  this  demeanour  was  de- 
scribed. Take  this  illustration.  There  was  a  little 
hunchbacked  tailor,  named  William  Goodfellow,  living 
on  his  property  (but  who  at  Abbotsford  was  termed  Robin 
Goodfellow).  This  tailor  was  employed  to  make  the 
curtains  for  the  new  library,  and  had  been  very  proud  oi 
his  work,  but  fell  ill  soon  afterwards,  and  Sir  Walter  was 
unremitting  in  his  attention  to  him.  "  I  can  never 
forget,"  says  Mr.  Lockhart,  "  the  evening  on  which  the 
poor  tailor  died.  When  Scott  entered  the  hovel,  he 
found  everything  silent,  and  inferred  from  the  looks  of 
the  good  women  in  attendance  that  the  patient  had  fallen 
asleep,  and  that  they  feared  his  sleep  was  the  final  one. 
He  murmured  some  syllables  of  kind  regret :  at  the 
sound  of  his  voice  the  dying  tailor  unclosed  his  eyes, 
and  eagerly  and  wistfully  sat  up,  clasping  his  hands  with 
an  expression  of  rapturous  gratefulness  and  devotion  that, 
in  the  midst  of  deformity,  disease,  pain,  and  wretched- 
ness, was  at  once  beautiful  and  sublime.  He  cried  with 
a  loud  voice,  'The  Lord  bless  and  reward  you!'  and 
expired  with  the  effort."1  Still  more  striking  is  the 
account  of  his  relation  with  Tom  Purdie,  the  wide- 

1  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  vii.  218. 


82  SIE  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHA*. 

mouthed,  under-sized,  broad-shouldered,  square-made,  thin- 
flanked  woodsman,  so  well  known  afterwards  by  all  Scott's 
Mends  as  he  waited  for  his  master  in  his  green  shooting- 
jacket,  white  hat,  and  drab  trousers.  Scott  first  made 
Tom  Purdie's  acquaintance  in  his  capacity  as  judge,  the 
man  being  brought  before  him  for  poaching,  at  the  time 
that  Scott  was  living  at  Ashestiel.  Tom  gave  so  touching 
an  account  of  his  circumstances — work  scarce — wife  and 
children  in  want — grouse  abundant — and  his  account  of 
himself  was  so  fresh  and  even  humorous,  that  Scott  let 
him  off  the  penalty,  and  made  him  his  shepherd.  He 
discharged  these  duties  so  faithfully  that  he  came  to  be 
his  master's  forester  and  factotum,  and  indeed  one  of  his 
best  friends,  though  a  little  disposed  to  tyrannize  over 
Scott  in  his  own  fashion.  A  visitor  describes  him  as 
unpacking  a  box  of  new  importations  for  his  master  "  as  if 
he  had  been  sorting  some  toys  for  a  restless  child."  But 
after  Sir  Walter  had  lost  the  bodily  strength  requisite 
for  riding,  and  was  too  melancholy  for  ordinary  conversa- 
tion, Tom  Purdie's  shoulder  was  his  great  stay  in  wan- 
dering through  his  woods,  for  with  him  he  felt  that  he 
might  either  speak  or  be  silent  at  his  pleasure.  "  What 
a  blessing  there  is,"  Scott  wrote  in  his  diary  at  that  time, 
"  in  a  fellow  like  Tom,  whom  no  familiarity  can  spoil, 
whom  you  may  scold  and  praise  and  joke  with,  knowing 
the  quality  of  the  man  is  unalterable  in  his  love  and 
reverence  to  his  master."  After  Scott's  failure,  Mr. 
Lockhart  writes  :  "  Before  I  leave  this  period,  I  must 
note  how  greatly  I  admired  the  manner  in  which  all  his 
dependents  appeared  to  have  met  the  reverse  of  his  for- 
tunes— a  reverse  which  inferred  very  considerable  altera- 
tion it  the  circumstances  of  every  one  of  them.  The  butler, 
instead  of  being  the  easy  chief  of  a  large  establishment. 


Till.]    BEMOVAL  TO  ABBOTSFORD,  AND  LIFE  THERE.    83 

was  now  doing  half  the  work  of  the  house  at  probably 
half  his  former  wages.  Old  Peter,  who  had  been  for  five 
and  twenty  years  a  dignified  coachman,  was  now  plough- 
man in  ordinary,  only  putting  his  horses  to  the  carriage 
upon  high  and  rare  occasions  ;  and  so  on  with  all  the  rest 
that  remained  of  the  ancient  train.  And  all,  to  my  view, 
seemed  happier  than  they  had  ever  done  before."1  The 
illustration  of  this  true  confidence  between  Scott  and  his 
servants  and  labourers  might  be  extended  to  almost  any 


Lockiart'a  Life  of  Soot    ix.  170. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

SOOTT'8    PAETNER8HIP8    WITH    THE    BALLANTYNB8. 

BEFORE  I  make  mention  of  Scott's  greatest  works,  Ms 
novels,  I  must  say  a  few  words  of  his  relation  to  the 
Ballantyne  Brothers,  who  involved  him,  and  were 
involved  by  him,  in  so  many  troubles,  and  with 
whose  name  the  story  of  his  broken  fortunes  is  inextri- 
cably bound  up.  James  Ballantyne,  the  elder  brother, 
was  a  schoolfellow  of  Scott's  at  Kelso,  and  was  the  editor 
and  manager  of  the  Kelso  Mail,  an  anti-democratic  journal, 
which  had  a  fair  circulation.  Ballantyne  was  something 
of  an  artist  as  regarded  "  type,"  and  Scott  got  him  there- 
fore to  print  his  Minstrelsy  of  the  Border,  the  excellent 
workmanship  of  "which  attracted  much  attention  in 
London.  In  1802,  on  Scott's  suggestion,  Ballantyne 
moved  to  Edinburgh ;  and  to  help  him  to  move,  Scott, 
who  was  already  meditating  some  investment  of  his 
little  capital  in  business  other  than  literary,  lent  him 
500Z.  Between  this  and  1805,  when  Scott  first  became  a 
partner  of  Ballantyne's  in  the  printing  business,  he  used 
every  exertion  to  get  legal  and  literary  printing  offered  to 
James  Ballautyne,  and,  according  to  Mr.  Lockhart,  the 
concern  "grew  and  prospered."  At  Whitsuntide,  1805, 
when  Tl  e  Lay  had  been  published,  but  before  Scott  had 
the  least  idea  of  the  prospects  of  gain  which  mere  lite- 


m.]       PAETNEESHIPS  WITH  THE  BALLANTYNES.        84 

rature  would  open  to  him,  he  formally,  though  secretly, 
joined  Ballantyne  as  a  partner  in  the  printing  business. 
He  explains  his  motives  for  this  step,  so  far  at  least  as  he 
then  recalled  them,  in  a  letter  written  after  his  misfor- 
tunes, in  1826.  "It  is  easy,"  he  said,  "no  doubt  for  any 
friend  to  blame  me  for  entering  into  connexion  with  com- 
mercial matters  at  all.  But  I  wish  to  know  what  I  could 
have  done  better— excluded  from  the  bar,  and  then  from 
all  profits  for  six  years,  by  my  colleague's  prolonged  life. 
Literature  was  not  in  those  days  what  poor  Constable  has 
made  it ;  and  with  my  little  capital  I  was  too  glad  to 
make  commercially  the  means  of  supporting  my  family. 
I  got  but  600/.  for  The  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  and — it 
was  a  price  that  made  men's  hair  stand  on  end — 1000/.  for 
Marmion.  I  have  been  far  from  suffering  by  James 
Ballantyne.  I  owe  it  to  him  to  say,  that  his  difficulties, 
as  well  as  his  advantages,  are  owing  to  me." 

This,  though  a  true,  was  probably  a  very  imperfect  ac- 
count of  Scott's  motives.  He  ceased  practising  at  the  bar, 
I  do  not  doubt,  in  great  degree  from  a  kind  of  hurt  pride 
at  his  ill-success,  at  a  time  when  he  felt  during  every 
month  more  and  more  confidence  in  his  own  powers. 
He  believed,  with  some  justice,  that  he  understood  some 
of  the  secrets  of  popularity  in  literature,  but  he  had  always, 
till  towards  the  end  of  his  life,  the  greatest  horror  of  rjsting 
on  literature  alone  as  his  main  resource ;  and  he  was  not  a 
man,  nor  was  Lady  Scott  a  woman,  to  pinch  and  live  nar- 
rowly. Were  it  only  for  his  lavish  generosity,  that  kind 
of  life  would  have  been  intolerable  to  him.  Hence,  he 
reflected,  that  if  he  could  but  use  his  literary  instinct  to 
feed  some  commercial  undertaking,  managed  by  a  man 
he  could  trust,  he  might  gain  a  considerable  percentage 
on  his  little  capital,  without  so  embarking  in  commerce 


88  SIE  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAF. 

ae  to  oblige  him  either  to  give  up  his  status  as  a  sheriff 
or  his  official  duties  as  a  clerk  of  session,  or  his  literary 
undertakings.  In  his  old  schoolfellow,  James  Ballantyne, 
he  believed  he  had  found  just  such  an  agent  as  he 
wanted,  the  requisite  link  between  literary  genius  like 
his  own,  and  the  world  which  reads  and  buys  books; 
and  he  thought  that,  by  feeling  his  way  a  little,  he  might 
secure,  through  this  partnership,  besides  the  then  very 
bare  rewards  of  authorship,  at  least  a  share  in  those 
more  liberal  rewards  which  commercial  men  managed  to 
squeeze  for  themselves  out  of  successful  authors.  And, 
further,  he  felt — and  this  was  probably  the  greatest  un- 
conscious attraction  for  him  in  this  scheme — that  with 
James  Ballantyne  for  his  partner  he  should  be  the  real 
leader  and  chief,  and  rather  in  the  position  of  a  patron 
and  benefactor  of  his  colleague,  than  of  one  in  any  degree 
dependent  on  the  generosity  or  approval  of  others.  "  If 
I  have  a  very  strong  passion  in  the  world,"  he  once  wrote 
of  himself — and  the  whole  story  of  his  life  seems  to  con- 
firm it — "it  is  pride."1  In  James  Ballantyne  he  had 
a  faithful,  but  almost  humble  friend,  with  whom  he  could 
deal  much  as  he  chose,  and  fear  no  wound  to  his  pride. 
He  had  himself  helped  Ballantyne  to  a  higher  line  of 
business  than  any  hitherto  aspired  to  by  him.  It  was 
his  own  book  which  first  got  the  Ballantyne  press  its 
public  credit.  And  if  he  could  but  create  a  great  com- 
mercial success  upon  this  foundation,  he  felt  that  he  should 
be  fairly  entitled  to  share  in  the  gains,  which  not  merely 
his  loan  of  capital,  but  his  foresight  and  courage  had 
opened  to  Ballantyne. 

And  it  is  quite  possible  that  Scott  might  have  suc- 
ceeded— or  at  all  events  not  seriously  failed — if  he  had 
»  Lockhart'a  Life  of  Scott,  viii.  22L 


O.]      PARTNERSHIPS  WITH  THE  BALLANTYNES.        87 

been  content  to  stick  to  the  printing  firm  of  James  Bal- 
lantyne  and  Co.,  and  had  not  launched  also  into  the  book- 
selling and  publishing  firm  of  John  Ballantyne  and  Co., 
or  had  never  begun  the  wild  and  dangerous  practice  of 
forestalling  his  gains,  and  spending  wealth  which  he  had 
uot  earned.  But  when  by  way  of  feeding  the  printing 
press  of  James  Ballantyne  and  Co.,  he  started  in  1809 
the  bookselling  and  publishing  firm  of  John  Ballantyne 
and  Co.,  using  as  his  agent  a  man  as  inferior  in  sterling 
worth  to  James,  as  James  was  inferior  in  general  ability 
to  himself,  he  carefully  dug  a  mine  under  his  own  feet, 
of  which  we  can  only  say,  that  nothing  except  his  genius 
could  have  prevented  it  from  exploding  long  before  it 
did.  The  truth  was  evidently  that  James  Ballantyne's 
respectful  homage,  and  John's  humorous  appreciation, 
all  but  blinded  Scott's  eyes  to  the  utter  inadequacy  of 
either  of  these  men,  especially  the  latter,  to  supply  the 
deficiencies  of  his  own  character  for  conducting  business 
of  this  kind  with  proper  discretion.  James  Ballantyne, 
who  was  pompous  and  indolent,  though  thoroughly 
honest,  and  not  without  some  intellectual  insight,  Scott 
used  to  call  Aldiborontiphoscophornio.  John,  who  was 
clever  but  frivolous,  dissipated,  and  tricksy,  he  termed 
Rigdumfunnidos,  or  his  "little  Picaroon."  It  is  clear 
from  Mr.  Lockhart's  account  of  the  latter  that  Scott 
not  only  did  not  respect,  but  despised  him,  though  he 
cordially  liked  him,  and  that  he  passed  over,  in  judging 
him,  vices  which  in  a  brother  or  son  of  his  own  he  would 
severely  have  rebuked.  I  believe  myself  that  his  liking 
for  co-operation  with  both,  was  greatly  founded  on  his 
feeling  that  they  were  simply  creatures  of  his,  to  whom  he 
could  pretty  well  dictate  what  he  wanted, — colleagues  whosa 
inferiority  to  himself  unconsciously  flattered  his  pride, 


8*  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT. 

Ho  was  evidently  inclined  to  resent  bitterly  the  patronage 
of  publishers.  He  sent  word  to  Blackwood  once  with 
great  hauteur,  after  some  suggestion  from  that  house 
had  been  made  to  him  which  appeared  to  him  to  interfere 
with  his  independence  as  an  author,  that  he  was  one 
of  "  the  Black  Hussars  "  of  literature,  who  would  not  en- 
dure that  sort  of  treatment.  Constable,  who  was  really 
very  liberal,  hurt  his  sensitive  pride  through  the  Edin- 
burgh Review,  of  which  Jeffrey  was  editor.  Thus  the 
Ballantynes'  great  deficiency — that  neither  of  them  had 
any  independent  capacity  for  the  publishing  business,  which 
would  in  any  way  hamper  his  discretion — though  this 
is  just  what  commercial  partners  ought  to  have  had,  or 
they  were  not  worth  their  salt, — was,  I  believe,  precisely 
what  induced  this  Black  Hussar  of  literature,  in  spite 
of  his  otherwise  considerable  sagacity  and  knowledge  of 
human  nature,  to  select  them  for  partners. 

And  yet  it  is  strange  that  he  not  only  chose  them,  but 
chose  the  inferior  and  lighter-headed  of  the  two  for  far  the 
most  important  and  difficult  of  the  two  businesses.  In  the 
printing  concern  there  was  at  least  this  to  be  said,  that 
of  part  of  the  business — the  selection  of  type  and  the 
superintendence  of  the  executive  part, — James  Ballan- 
tyne  was  a  good  judge.  He  was  never  apparently  a 
good  man  of  business,  for  he  kept  no  strong  hand  over 
the  expenditure  and  accounts,  which  is  the  core  of  success 
in  every  concern.  But  he  understood  types ;  and  his 
customers  were  publishers,  a  wealthy  and  judicious  class, 
who  were  not  likely  all  to  fail  together.  But  to  select  a 
"  Eigdumfunnidos," — a  dissipated  comic-song  singer  and 
horse-fancier, — for  the  head  of  a  publishing  concern,  waa 
indeed  a  kind  of  insanity.  It  is  told  of  John  Ballantyne, 
that  after  the  successful  negotiation  with  Constable  for 


0.]   PARTNEESHIPS  WITH  THE  BALLANTYNES.   89 


Rob  Roy,  and  v^hile  "  hopping  up  and  down  in  his  glee," 
he  exclaimed,  "  '  Is  Eob's  gun  here,  Mr.  Scott  ?  "Would 
you  object  to  my  trying  the  old  barrel  with  a  few  da 
joy?'  'Nay,  Mr.  Puff,'  said  Scott,  'it  would  burst 
and  blow  you  to  the  devil  before  your  time.'  '  Johnny, 
my  man,'  said  Constable,  'what  the  mischief  puts 
drawing  at  sight  into  your  head?'  Scott  laughed 
heartily  at  this  innuendo  ;  and  then  observing  that  the 
little  man  felt  somewhat  sore,  called  attention  to  the  notes 
of  a  bird  in  the  adjoining  shrubbery.  '  And  by-the-bye,' 
said  he,  as  they  continued  listening,  "tis  a  long  time, 
Johnny,  since  we  have  had  "  The  Cobbler  of  Kelso."  ' 
Mr.  Puff  forthwith  jumped  up  on  a  mass  of  stone,  and 
seating  himself  in  the  proper  attitude  of  one  working  with 
an  awl,  began  a  favourite  interlude,  mimicking  a  certain 
son  of  Crispin,  at  whose  stall  Scott  and  he  had  often 
lingered  when  they  were  schoolboys,  and  a  blackbird,  the 
only  companion  of  his  cell,  that  used  to  sing  to  him  while 
he  talked  and  whistled  to  it  all  day  long.  With  this 
performance  Scott  was  always  delighted.  Nothing  could  be 
richer  than  the  contrast  of  the  bird's  wild,  sweet  notes, 
some  of  which  he  imitated  with  wonderful  skill,  and  the  ac- 
companiment of  the  cobbler's  hoarse,  cracked  voice,  uttering 
all  manner  of  endearing  epithets,  which  Johnny  multiplied 
and  varied  in  a  style  worthy  of  the  old  women  in  Eabelftis 
at  the  birth  of  Pantagruel."  *  That  passage  gives  pre- 
cisely the  kind  of  estimation  in  which  John  Ballantyne 
was  held  both  by  Scott  and  Constable.  And  yet  it  was 
to  him  that  Scott  entrusted  the  dangerous  and  difficult 
duty  of  setting  up  a  new  publishing  house  as  a  rival  to 
the  best  publishers  of  the  day.  No  doubt  Scott  really 

1  Lockhart's  Lift  of  Scott,  T.  218. 
G        5  7 


80  SIE  WALTER  SOOTT.  [ciur. 

relied  on  his  own  judgment  for  working  the  publishing 
house.  But  except  where  his  own  books  were  concerned, 
no  judgment  could  have  been  worse.  In  the  first  place  he 
was  always  wanting  to  do  literary  jobs  for  a  friend,  and  so 
advised  the  publishing  of  all  sorts  of  unsaleable  books,  be- 
cause his  friends  desired  to  write  them.  In  the  next  place, 
he  was  a  genuine  historian,  and  one  of  the  antiquarian 
kind  himself;  he  was  himself  really  interested  in  all  sorts 
of  historical  and  antiquarian  issues, — and  very  mistakenly 
gave  the  public  credit  for  wishing  to  know  what  l»e  him- 
self wished  to  know.  I  should  add  that  Scott'a  good 
nature  and  kindness  of  heart  not  only  led  him  to  help  on 
many  books  which  he  knew  in  himself  could  never 
answer,  and  some  which,  as  he  well  knew,  would  be  alto- 
gether worthless,  but  that  it  greatly  biassed  his  own 
intellectual  judgment.  Nothing  can  be  plainer  than  that 
he  really  held  his  intimate  friend,  Joanna  Baillie,  a  very 
great  dramatic  poet,  a  much  greater  poet  than  himself,  for 
instance ;  one  fit  to  be  even  mentioned  as  following — at  a 
distance — in  the  track  of  Shakespeare.  He  suppose* 
Erskine  to  exhort  him  thus  :-- 

"  Or,  if  to  touch  such  chord  be  thine, 
Restore  the  ancient  tragic  line, 
And  emulate  the  notes  that  rung 
From  the  wild  harp  which  silent  hung 
By  silver  Avon's  holy  shore, 
Till  twice  a  hundred  years  roll'd  o'er, — 
When  she,  the  bold  enchantress,  came 
With  fearless  hand  and  heart  on  name, 
BTom  the  pale  willow  snatch'd  the  treasure^ 
And  swept  it  with  a  kindred  measure, 
Till  Avon's  swans,  while  rung  the  grove 
With  Montfort's  hate  and  Basil's  love, 
Awakening  at  the  inspired  strain, 
Deem'd  their  own  Shakespeare  lived  again." 


IX]   *ARTNEBSHIPS  WITH  THE  BALLANTYNBS.   91 

Avon's  swans  must  have  been  Avon's  geese,  I  think,  if 
they  had  deemed  anything  of  the  kind.  Joanna  Baillie's 
dramas  are  "  nice,"  and  rather  dull ;  now  and  then  she 
can  write  a  song  with  the  ease  and  sweetness  that  suggest 
Shakespearian  echoes.  But  Scott's  judgment  was  obviously 
blinded  by  his  just  and  warm  regard  for  Joanna  Baillie 
herself. 

Of  course  with  such  interfering  causes  to  bring  unsale- 
able books  to  the  house — of  course  I  do  not  mean  that 
John  Ballantyne  and  Co.  published  for  Joanna  Bail- 
lie,  or  that  they  would  have  lost  by  it  if  they  had — the 
new  firm  published  all  sorts  of  books  which  did  not  sell 
at  all ;  while  John  Ballantyne  himself  indulged  in  a  great 
many  expenses  and  dissipations,  for  which  John  Ballan- 
tyne and  Co.  had  to  pay.  Nor  was  it  very  easy  for  a 
partner  who  himself  drew  bills  on  the  future — even 
though  he  were  the  well-spring  of  all  the  paying  business 
the  company  had — to  be  very  severe  on  a  fellow-partner 
who  supplied  his  pecuniary  needs  in  the  same  way. 
At  all  events,  there  is  no  question  that  all  through  1813 
and  1814  Scott  was  kept  in  constant  suspense  and  fear  of 
bankruptcy,  by  the  ill- success  of  John  Ballantyne  and 
Co.,  and  the  utter  want  of  straightforwardness  in  John 
Ballantyne  himself  as  to  the  bills  out,  and  which  had 
to  be  provided  against.  It  was  the  publication  of  Waver 
ley,  and  the  consequent  opening  up  of  the  richest  vein 
not  only  in  Scott's  own  genius,  but  in  his  popularity  with 
the  public,  which  alone  ended  these  alarms ;  and  the 
many  unsaleable  works  of  John  Ballantyne  and  Co. 
were  then  gradually  disposed  of  to  Constable  and  others, 
to  their  own  great  loss,  as  part  of  the  conditions  on  which 
they  received  a  share  in  the  copyright  of  the  wonderful 
novels  which  sold  like  wildfire.  But  though  in  this  way 


6fc  SIR  WALTER  SCOW.  [CHAP. 

the  publishing  business  of  John  Ballantyne  and  Co. 
was  saved,  and  its  affairs  pretty  decently  wound  up,  the 
printing  firm  remained  saddled  with  some  of  their  obliga- 
tions j  while  Constable's  business,  on  which  Scott  de- 
pended for  the  means  with  which  he  was  buying  hia 
estate,  building  his  castle,  and  settling  money  on  hia 
daughter-in-law,  was  seriously  injured  by  the  purchase  of 
all  this  unsaleable  stock. 

I  do  not  think  that  any  one  who  looks  into  the  compli- 
cated controversy  between  the  representatives  of  the  Bal- 
lantynes  and  Mr.  Lockhart,  concerning  these  matters,  can 
be  content  with  Mr.  Lockhart's — no  doubt  perfectly  sincere 
— judgment  on  the  case.  It  is  obvious  that  amidst  these 
intricate  accounts,  he  fell  into  one  or  two  serious  blunders 
— blunders  very  unjust  to  James  Ballantyne.  And  without 
pretending  to  have  myself  formed  any  minute  judgment 
on  the  details,  I  think  the  following  points  clear: — 
(1.)  That  James  Ballantyne  was  very  severely  judged  by 
Mr.  Lockhart,  on  grounds  which  were  never  alleged  by 
Scott  against  him  at  all, — indeed  on  grounds  on  which 
he  was  expressly  exempted  from  all  blame  by  Sir  Walter. 
(2.)  That  Sir  Walter  Scott  was  very  severely  judged  by 
the  representatives  of  the  Ballantynes,  on  grounds  on 
which  James  Ballantyne  himself  never  brought  any  charge 
against  him ;  on  the  contrary,  he  declared  that  he  had  no 
charge  to  bring.  (3.)  That  both  Scott  and  his  part- 
ners invited  ruin  by  freely  spending  gains  which  they 
only  expected  to  earn,  and  that  in  this  Scott  certainly  set 
an  example  which  he  could  hardly  expect  feebler  men  not 
to  follow.  On  the  whole,  I  think  the  troubles  with  the 
Ballantyne  brothers  brought  to  light  not  only  that  eager 
gambling  spirit  in  him,  which  his  grandfather  indulged 
with  better  success  and  more  moderation  when  he  bought 


raj      PARTNERSHIPS  WITH  THE  BALLANTYNE8.        93 

the  hunter  with  money  destined  for  a  flock  of  sheep,  and 
then  gave  up  gambling  for  ever,  but  a  tendency  still  more 
dangerous,  and  in  some  respects  involving  an  even  greater 
moral  defect, — I  mean  a  tendency,  chiefly  due,  I  think, 
to  a  very  deep-seated  pride, — to  prefer  inferior  men  as 
working  colleagues  in  business.  And  yet  it  is  clear  that  if 
Scott  were  to  dabble  in  publishing  at  all,  he  really  needed 
the  check  of  men  of  larger  experience,  and  less  literary 
turn  of  mind.  The  great  majority  of  consumers  of  popular 
literature  are  not,  and  indeed  will  hardly  ever  be,  literary 
men ;  and  that  is  precisely  why  a  publisher  who  is  not,  in 
the  main,  literary, — who  looks  on  authors'  MSS.  for  the 
most  part  with  distrust  and  suspicion,  much  as  a  rich  man 
looks  at  a  begging-letter,  or  a  sober  and  judicious  fish  at 
an  angler's  fly, — is  so  much  less  likely  to  run  aground 
than  such  a  man  as  Scott.  The  untried  author  should  be 
regarded  by  a  wise  publisher  as  a  natural  enemy, — an 
enemy  indeed  of  a  class,  rare  specimens  whereof  will 
always  be  his  best  friends,  and  who,  therefore,  should  not 
be  needlessly  affronted — but  also  as  one  of  a  class  of 
whom  nineteen  out  of  every  twenty  will  dangle  before  the 
publisher's  eyes  wiles  and  hopes  and  expectations  of  the 
most  dangerous  and  illusory  character, — which  constitute 
indeed  the  very  perils  that  it  is  his  true  function  in  life 
skilfully  to  evade.  The  Ballantynes  were  quite  unfit  for 
this  function ;  first,  they  had  not  the  experience  requisite 
for  it ;  next,  they  were  altogether  too  much  under  Scott's 
influence.  No  wonder  that  the  partnership  came  to  no 
good,  and  left  behind  it  the  germs  of  calamity  even  more 
serious  still. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  WAVERLEY   NOVELS. 

IIT  the  summer  of  1814,  Scott  took  up  again  and  com- 
pleted— almost  at  a  single  heat, — a  fragment  of  a  Jacobite 
story,  begun  in  1805  and  then  laid  aside.  It  was  pub- 
lished anonymously,  and  its  astonishing  success  turned 
back  again  the  scales  of  Scott's  fortunes,  already  inclining 
ominously  towards  a  catastrophe.  This  story  was  Waver- 
ley.  Mr.  Carlyle  has  praised  Waverley  above  its  fellows. 
"  On  the  whole,  contrasting  Waverley,  which  was  care- 
fully written,  with  most  of  its  followers  which  were 
written  extempore,  one  may  regret  the  extempore  method." 
This  is,  however,  a  very  unfortunate  judgment.  Not  one 
of  the  whole  series  of  novels  appears  to  have  been  written 
more  completely  extempore  than  the  great  bulk  of  Waver- 
ley, including  almost  everything  that  made  it  either  popular 
with  the  million  or  fascinating  to  the  fastidious  j  and  it 
is  even  likely  that  this  is  one  of  the  causes  of  its  excel- 
lence. 

"  The  last  two  volumes,"  says  Scott,  in  a  letter  to  Mr. 
Morritt,  "were  written  in  three  weeks."  And  here  is 
Mr.  Lockhart's  description  of  the  effect  which  Scott's  in- 
cessant toil  during  the  composition,  produced  on  a  friend 
whoae  window  happened  to  command  the  novelist's 
iitudy : — 


S.]  THE  WAVEBLEY  NOVELS.  95 

*  Happening  to  pass  through  Edinburgh  in  Jane,  1814,  1 
dined  one  day  with  the  gentleman  in  question  (now  the 
Honourable  William  Menzies,  one  of  the  Supreme  Judges  at 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope),  whose  residence  was  then  in  George 
Street,  situated  very  near  to,  and  at  right  angles  with, 
North  Castle  Street.  It  was  a  party  of  very  young  persons, 
most  of  them,  like  Menzies  and  myself,  destined  for  the 
Bar  of  Scotland,  all  gay  and  thoughtless,  enjoying  the  first 
flush  of  manhood,  with  little  remembrance  of  the  yesterday, 
or  care  of  the  morrow.  When  my  companion's  worthy  father 
and  uncle,  after  seeing  two  or  three  bottles  go  round,  left  the 
juveniles  to  themselves,  the  weather  being  hot,  we  adjourned 
to  a  library  which  had  one  large  window  looking  northwards. 
After  carousing  here  for  an  hour  or  more,  I  observed  that  a 
shade  had  come  over  the  aspect  of  my  friend,  who  hap- 
pened to  be  placed  immediately  opposite  to  myself,  and  said 
something  that  intimated  a  fear  of  his  being  unwell.  '  No,' 
said  he,  '  I  shall  be  well  enough  presently,  if  you  will  only 
let  me  sit  where  you  are,  and  take  my  chair ;  for  there  is  a 
confounded  hand  in  sight  of  me  here,  which  has  often 
bothered  me  befere,  and  now  it  won't  let  me  fill  my  glass 
with  a  good  will.'  I  rose  to  change  places  with  him  accord- 
ingly, and  he  pointed  out  to  me  this  hand,  which,  like  the 
writing  on  Belshazzar's  wall,  disturbed  his  hour  of  hilarity. 
'  Since  we  sat  down,'  he  said,  '  I  have  been  watching  it — 
it  fascinates  my  eye — it  never  stops — page  after  page  is 
finished,  and  thrown  on  that  heap  of  MS.,  and  still  it  goes  on 
unwearied ;  and  so  it  will  be  till  candles  are  brought  in,  and 
God  knows  how  long  after  that.  It  is  the  same  every  night 
— I  can't  stand  a  sight  of  it  when  I  am  not  at  my  books.'* 
'  Some  stupid,  dogged  engrossing  clerk,  probably,'  ex- 
claimed myself, '  or  some  other  giddy  youth  in  our  society.' 
'  No,  boys,'  said  our  host ;  '  I  well  know  what  hand  it  is— 
'tis  Walter  Scott's.' " » 

If  that  is  not  extempore  writing,  it  is  difficult  to  say 
extempore  writing  is.      But  in  truth  there  is  no 

•  Lockharfg  Life  of  Scott,  iv.  171-8. 


96  BIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

evidence  that  any  one  of  the  novels  was  laboured,  or  even 
so  much  as  carefully  composed.  Scott's  method  of  com- 
position waa  always  the  same;  and,  when  writing  an 
imaginative  work,  the  rate  of  progress  seems  to  have 
been  pretty  even,  depending  much  more  on  the  absence  of 
disturbing  engagements,  than  on  any  mental  irregularity. 
The  morning  was  always  his  brightest  time ;  but  morning 
or  evening,  in  country  or  in  town,  well  or  ill,  writing 
with  his  own  pen  or  dictating  to  an  amanuensis  in  the 
intervals  of  screaming-fits  due  to  the  torture  of  cramp  in 
the  stomach,  Scott  spun  away  at  his  imaginative  web 
almost  as  evenly  as  a  silkworm  spins  at  its  golden  cocoon. 
Nor  can  I  detect  the  slightest  trace  of  any  difference  in 
quality  between  the  stories,  such  as  can  be  reasonably 
ascribed  to  comparative  care  or  haste.  There  are  diffe- 
rences, and  even  great  differences,  of  course,  ascribable  to 
the  less  or  greater  suitability  of  the  subject  chosen  to 
Scott's  genius,  but  I  can  find  no  trace  of  the  sort  of 
cause  to  which  Mr.  Carlyle  refers.  Thus,  few,  I  suppose, 
would  hesitate  to  say  that  while  Old  Mortality  is  very 
near,  if  not  quite,  the  finest  of  Scott's  works,  The 
Black  Dwarf  is  not  far  from  the  other  end  of  the  scale. 
Yet  the  two  were  written  in  immediate  succession  (The 
Black  Dwarf  being  the  first  of  the  two),  and  were  pub- 
lished together,  as  the  first  series  of  Tales  of  my  Land- 
lord, in  1816.  Nor  do  I  think  that  any  competent  critic 
would  find  any  clear  deterioration  of  quality  in  the  novels 
of  the  later  years, — excepting  of  course  the  two  written 
after  the  stroke  of  paralysis.  It  is  true,  of  course,  that 
Bome  of  the  subjects  which  most  powerfully  stirred  his 
imagination  were  among  his  earlier  themes,  and  that 
he  could  not  effectually  use  the  same  subject  twice, 
though  he  now  and  then  tried  it.  But  making  allowance 


B.]  THE  WAYEBLEY  NOYELS.  97 

for  this  consideration,  the  imaginative  powor  of  the 
novels  is  as  astonishingly  even  as  the  rate  of  composition 
itself.  For  my  own  part,  I  greatly  prefer  The  Fortunes  oj 
Nigel  (which  was  written  in  1822)  to  Waverley  which 
was  begun  in  1805,  and  finished  in  1814,  and  though 
very  many  better  critics  would  probably  decidedly  dis- 
agree, I  do  not  think  that  any  of  them  would  consider 
this  preference  grotesque  or  purely  capricious.  Indeed, 
though  Anne  of  Geierstein, — the  last  composed  before 
Scott's  stroke, — would  hardly  seem  to  any  careful  judge 
the  equal  of  Waverley,  I  do  not  much  doubt  that  if  it 
had  appeared  in  place  of  Waverley,  it  would  have  excited 
very  nearly  as  much  interest  and  admiration;  nor  that 
had  Waverley  appeared  in  1829,  in  place  of  Anne  of 
Geierstein,  it  would  have  failed  to  excite  very  much  more. 
In  these  fourteen  most  effective  years  of  Scott's  literary  life, 
during  which  he  wrote  twenty-three  novels  besides 
shorter  tales,  the  best  stories  appear  to  have  been  on  the 
whole  the  most  rapidly  written,  probably  because  they 
took  the  strongest  hold  of  the  author's  imagination. 

Till  near  the  close  of  his  career  as  an  author,  Scott 
never  avowed  his  responsibility  for  any  of  these  series  of 
novels,  and  even  took  some  pains  to  mystify  the  public 
as  to  the  identity  between  the  author  of  Waverley  and 
the  author  of  Tales  of  my  Landlord.  The  care  with 
which  the  secret  was  kept  is  imputed  by  Mr.  Lockhart  in 
some  degree  to  the  habit  of  mystery  which  had  grown 
upon  Scott  during  his  secret  partnership  with  the  Ballan- 
tynes ;  but  in  this  he  seems  to  be  confounding  two  very 
different  phases  of  Scott's  character.  No  doubt  he  was, 
a/s  a  professional  man,  a  little  ashamed  of  his  commercial 
speculation,  and  unwilling  to  betray  it.  But  he  was  far 
from  ashamed  of  his  literary  enterprise,  though  it  seems 
5* 


98  SIR  WALTBE  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

that  he  was  at  first  very  anxious  lest  a  comparative 
failure,  or  even  a  mere  moderate  success,  in  a  less  am- 
bitious sphere  than  that  of  poetry,  should  endanger  the 
great  reputation  he  had  gained  as  a  poet.     That  was 
apparently  the  first  reason  for  secrecy.     But,  over  and 
above  this,  it  is  clear  that  the  mystery  stimulated  Scott's 
imagination  and   saved  him  trouble  as  well     He  was 
obviously  more  free  under  the  veil — free  from  the  liability 
of  having  to  answer  for  the  views  of  life  or  history 
suggested  in  his  stories ;  but  besides  this,  what  was  of 
more  importance  to  him,  the  slight  disguise  stimulated  his 
sense  of  humour,   and  gratified  the  whimsical,  boyish 
pleasure  which  he  always  had  in  acting  an  imaginary 
character.     He  used  to  talk  of  himself  as  a  sort  of  Abon 
Hassan — a  private  man  one  day,  and  acting  the  part  of  a 
monarch  the  next — with  the  kind  of  glee  which  indicated 
a  real  delight  in  the  change  of  parts,  and  I  have  little 
doubt  that  he  threw  himself  with  the  more  gusto  into 
characters  very  different  from  his  own,  in  consequence  of 
the  pleasure  it  gave  him  to  conceive  his  friends  hopelessly 
misled  by  this  display  of  traits,  with  which  he  supposed 
that  they  could  not  have  credited  him  even  in  imagination. 
Thus  besides  relieving  him  of  a  host  of  compliments  which 
he  did  not  enjoy,  and  enabling  him  the  better  to  evade 
an  ill-bred  curiosity,  the  disguise  no  doubt  was  the  same 
sort  of  fillip  to  the  fancy  which  a  mask  and  domino  or  a 
fancy  dress  are  to  that  of  their  wearers.   Even  in  a  disguise 
a  man  cannot  cease  to  be  himself ;  but  he  can  get  rid  of 
his    improperly    "  imputed  "    righteousness — often    the 
greatest  burden  he  has  to  bear — and  of  all  the  expectations 
formed  on  the  strength,  as  Mr.  Clough  says, — 

"  Of  having  been  what  one  has  been, 
What  one  thinks  one  is,  or  thinks  that  others  suppose  one." 


8.]  THE  WAVBELBY  NOVELS.  98 

To  some  men  the  freedom  of  this  disguise  Is  a  real 
danger  and  temptation.  It  never  could  have  been  so  to 
Scott,  who  was  in  the  main  one  of  the  simplest  as  well  aa 
the  boldest  and  proudest  of  men.  And  as  most  men 
perhaps  would  admit  that  a  good  deal  of  even  the  best  part 
of  their  nature  is  rather  suppressed  than  expressed  by  the 
name  by  which  they  are  known  in  the  world,  Scott  must 
have  felt  this  in  a  far  higher  degree,  and  probably  re- 
garded the  manifold  characters  under  which  he  was  known 
to  society,  as  representing  him  in  some  respects  more 
justly  than  any  individual  name  could  have  done.  His 
mind  ranged  hither  and  thither  over  a  wide  field — far 
beyond  that  of  his  actual  experience, — and  probably 
ranged  over  it  all  the  more  easily  for  not  being  absolutely 
tethered  to  a  single  class  of  associations  by  any  public 
confession  of  his  authorship.  After  all,  when  it  became 
universally  known  that  Scott  was  the  only  author  of  all 
these  tales,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  public  thought 
as  adequately  of  the  imaginative  efforts  which  had  created 
them,  as  they  did  while  they  remained  in  some  doubt 
whether  there  was  a  multiplicity  of  agencies  at  work,  or 
only  one.  The  uncertainty  helped  them  to  realize  the 
many  lives  which  were  really  led  by  the  author  of  all 
these  tales,  more  completely  than  any  confession  of  the 
individual  authorship  could  have  done.  The  shrinking 
of  activity  in  public  curiosity  and  wonder  which  follows 
the  final  determination  of  such  ambiguities,  is  very  apt  to 
result  rather  in  a  dwindling  of  the  imaginative  effort  to 
enter  into  the  genius  which  gave  rise  to  them,  than  in  an 
increase  of  respect  for  so  manifold  a  creative  power. 

When  Scott  wrote,  such  fertility  as  his  in  the  produc- 
tion of  novels  was  regarded  with  amazement  approaching 
to  absolute  incredulity.  Yet  he  was  in  this  respect  only 


100  SIE  WALTEB  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

the  advanced -guard  of  a  not  inconsiderable  class  of  men 
and  women  who  have  a  i  pecial  gift  for  pouring  out  storj 
after  story,  containing  a  gftat  variety  of  figures,  while  re- 
taining a  certain  even  level  of  merit.     There  is  more  than 
one  novelist  of  the  present  day  who  has  far  surpassed 
Scott  in  the  number  of  his  tales,  and  one  at  least  of  very 
high  repute,   who   has,  I  believe,   produced  more  even 
within  the  same  time.     But  though  to  our  larger  expe- 
rience, Scott's  achievement,  in  respect  of  mere  fertility,  is 
by  no  means  the  miracle  which  it  once  seemed,  1  do  not 
think  one  of  his  successors  can  compare  with  him  for  a 
moment  in  the  ease  and  truth  with  which  he  painted, 
not  merely  the  life  of  his  own  time  and  country — seldom 
indeed  that  of  precisely  his  own  time — but  that  of  days 
long  past,  and  often  too  of  scenes  far  distant.     The  most 
powerful  of  all  his  stories,  Old  Mortality,  was  the  story  of  a 
period  more  than  a  century  and  a  quarter  before  he  wrote; 
and  others, — which  though  inferior  to  this  in  force,  are 
nevertheless,  when  compared  with  the  so-called  historical 
romances  of  any  other  English  writer,  what  sunlight  is  to 
moonlight,  if  you  can  say  as  much  for  the  latter  as  to 
admit  even  that  comparison, — go  back  to  the  period  of  the 
Tudors,   that    is,   two   centuries   and   a  half.       Quentin 
Duricard,  which  is  all  but  amongst  the  best,  runs  back 
farther  still,  far  into  the  previous  century,-  while  Ivanhoe 
and   The   Talisman,  though  not  among  the  greatest  of 
Scott's  works,  carry  us  back  more  than  five  hundred  years. 
The  new  class  of  extempore  novel  writers,  though  more 
considerable  than,  sixty  years  ago,  any  one  could  have 
expected  ever  to  see  it,  is  still  limited,  and  on  any  high 
level  of  merit  will  probably  always  be  limited,  to  the 
delineation  of  the  times  of  which  the  narrator  has  personal 
experience.     Scott  seemed  to  have  had  something  very 


fc]  fttE  WAVEBLEY  NOVELS.  101 

like  personal  experience  of  a  few  centuries  at  least,  judging 
by  the  ease  and  freshness  with  which  he  poured  out  his 
stories  of  these  centuries,  and  though  no  one  can  pretend 
that  even  he  could  describe  the  period  of  the  Tudors  as 
Miss  Austen  described  the  country  parsons  and  squires  of 
George  the  Third's  reign,  or  as  Mr.  Trollope  describes  the 
politicians  and  hunting-men  of  Queen  Victoria's,  it  is  never- 
theless the  evidence  of  a  greater  imagination  to  make  us  live 
so  familiarly  as  Scott  does  amidst  the  political  and  religious 
controversies  of  two  or  three  centuries'  duration,  to  be  the 
actual  witnesses,  as  it  were,  of  Margaret  of  Anjou's  throes 
of  vain  ambition,  and  Mary  Stuart's  fascinating  remorse, 
and  Elizabeth's  domineering  and  jealous  balancings  of 
noble  against  noble,  of  James  the  First's  shrewd  pedantries, 
and  the  Eegent  Murray's  large  forethought,  of  the  politic 
craft  of  Argyle,  the  courtly  ruthlessness  of  Claverhouse, 
and  the  high-bred  clemency  of  Monmouth,  than  to  reflect 
in  countless  modifications  the  freaks,  figures,  and  fashions 
of  our  own  time. 

The  most  striking  feature  of  Scott's  romances  is  that, 
for  the  most  part,  they  are  pivoted  on  public  rather  than 
mere  private  interests  and  passions.  "With  but  few  excep- 
tions— (TJie  Antiquary,  St.  Ronan's  Well,  and  Guy  Man- 
nering  are  the  most  important) — Scott's  novels  give  us  an 
imaginative  view,  not  of  mere  individuals,  but  of  indi- 
viduals as  they  are  affected  by  the  public  strifes  and  social 
divisions  of  the  age.  And  this  it  is  which  gives  his  books 
so  large  an  interest  for  old  and  young,  soldiers  and  states- 
men, the  world  of  society  and  the  recluse,  alike.  You  can 
hardly  read  any  novel  of  Scott's  and  not  become  better 
aware  what  public  life  and  political  issues  mean.  And 
yet  there  is  no  artificiality,  no  elaborate  attitudinizing 
before  the  antique  mirrors  of  the  past,  like  Bulwer's  no 


108  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAR 

dressing  out  of  clothes-horses  like  G.  P.  R.  James.  The 
bol  iness  and  freshness  of  the  present  are  carried  back  into 
the  past,  and  you  see  Papists  and  Puritans,  Cavaliers  and 
Roundheads,  Jews,  Jacobites,  and  freebooters,  preachers, 
schoolmasters,  mercenary  soldiers,  gipsies,  and  beggars,  all 
living  the  sort  of  life  which  the  reader  feels  that  in  their 
circumstances  and  under  the  same  conditions  of  time  and 
place  and  parentage,  he  might  have  lived  too.  Indeed, 
no  man  can  read  Scott  without  being  more  of  a  public 
man,  whereas  the  ordinary  novel  tends  to  make  its  readers 
rather  less  of  one  than  before. 

Next,  though  most  of  these  stories  are  rightly  called 
romances,  no  one  can  avoid  observing  that  they  give  that 
side  of  life  which  is  unromantic,  quite  as  vigorously  as  the 
romantic  side.  This  was  not  true  of  Scott's  poems,  which 
only  expressed  one-half  of  his  nature,  and  were  almost  pure 
romances.  But  in  the  novels  the  business  of  life  is  even 
better  portrayed  than  its  sentiments.  Mr.  Bagehot,  one  of 
the  ablest  of  Scott's  critics,  has  pointed  out  this  admirably 
in  his  essay  on  The  Waverley  Novels.  "  Many  historical 
novelists,"  he  says,  "  especialy  those  who  with  care  and 
pains  have  read  up  the  detail,  are  often  evidently  in 
a  strait  how  to  pass  from  their  history  to  their  sentiment. 
The  fancy  of  Sir  Walter  could  not  help  connecting  the 
two.  If  he  had  given  us  the  English  side  of  the  race  to 
Derby,  he  would  have  described  the  Bank  of  England 
paying  in  sixpences,  and  also  the  loves  of  the  cashier." 
No  one  who  knows  the  novels  well  can  question  this. 
Fergus  Maclvor's  ways  and  means,  his  careful  arrange- 
ments for  receiving  subsidies  in  black  mail,  are  as  care- 
fully recorded  as  his  lavish  highland  hospitalities;  and 
when  he  sends  his  silver  cup  to  the  Gaelic  bard  who 
aheunts  his  greatness,  the  faithful  historian  does  not  for- 


«.]  THE  WAVEBLEY  NOVELS.          103 

tcet  to  let  us  know  that  the  cup  is  his  last,  and  that  he  is 
hard-pressed  for  the  generosities  of  the  future.  So  too 
the  hahitual  thievishness  of  the  highlanders  is  pressed 
upon  us  quite  as  vividly  as  their  gallantry  and  supersti- 
tions. And  so  careful  is  Sir  "Walter  to  paint  the  petty 
pedantries  of  the  Scotch  traditional  conservatism,  that  he 
will  not  spare  even  Charles  Edward — of  whom  he  draws 
eo  graceful  a  picture — the  humiliation  of  submitting  to 
old  Bradwardine's  "  solemn  act  of  homage,"  but  makes  him 
go  through  the  absurd  ceremony  of  placing  his  foot  on  a 
cushion  to  have  its  brogue  unlatched  by  the  dry  old 
enthusiast  of  heraldic  lore.  Indeed  it  was  because  Scott 
so  much  enjoyed  the  contrast  between  the  high  sentiment 
of  life  and  its  dry  and  often  absurd  detail,  that  his  imagi- 
nation found  so  much  freer  a  vent  in  the  historical 
romance,  than  it  ever  found  in  the  romantic  poem. 
Yet  he  clearly  needed  the  romantic  excitement  of  pictu- 
resque scenes  and  historical  interests,  too.  I  do  not 
think  he  would  ever  have  gained  any  brilliant  success  in 
the  narrower  region  of  the  domestic  novel.  He  said  him- 
self, in  expressing  his  admiration  of  Miss  Austen,  "  The  big 
bow-wow  strain  I  can  do  myself,  like  any  now  going,  but 
the  exquisite  touch  which  renders  ordinary  commonplace 
things  and  characters  interesting,  from  the  truth  of  the 
description  and  the  sentiment,  is  denied  to  me."  Indeed 
he  tried  it  to  some  extent  in  St.  Honan's  Well,  and  so  far 
as  he  tried  it,  I  think  he  failed.  Scott  needed  a  certain 
largeness  of  type,  a  strongly-marked  class-life,  and,  where 
it  was  possible,  a  free,  out-of-doors  life,  for  his  delinea- 
tions. No  one  could  paint  beggars  and  gipsies,  and  wan- 
dering fiddlers,  and  mercenary  soldiers,  and  peasants  and 
farmers  and  lawyers,  and  magistrates,  and  preachers,  and 
courtiers,  and  statesmen,  and  best  of  all  perhaps  queen* 


104  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

and  kings,  with  anything  like  his  ability.  But  when  it 
came  to  describing  the  small  differences  of  manner,  diffe- 
rences not  due  to  external  habits,  so  much  as  to  internal 
sentiment  or  education,  or  mere  domestic  circumstance, 
he  was  beyond  his  proper  field.  In  the  sketch  of  the  St. 
Ronan's  Spa  and  the  company  at  the  taUe-tf hote,  he  is 
of  course  somewhere  near  the  mark, — he  was  too  able  a 
man  to  fall  far  short  of  success  in  anything  he  really  gave 
to  the  world;  but  it  is  not  interesting.  Miss  Austen 
would  have  made  Lady  Penelope  Penfeather  a  hundred 
times  as  amusing.  "We  turn  to  Meg  Dods  and  Touch- 
wood, and  Cargill,  and  Captain  Jekyl,  and  Sir  Bingo 
Binks,  and  to  Clara  Mowbray, — i.  e,  to  the  lives  really 
moulded  by  large  and  specific  causes,  for  enjoyment,  and 
leave  the  small  gossip  of  the  company  at  the  Wells  as, 
relatively  at  least,  a  failure.  And  it  is  well  for  all  the  world 
that  it  was  so.  The  domestic  novel,  when  really  of  the 
highest  kind,  is  no  doubt  a  perfect  work  of  art,  and  an 
unfailing  source  of  amusement ;  but  it  has  nothing  of  the 
tonic  influence,  the  large  instructiveness,  the  stimulating 
intellectual  air,  of  Scott's  historic  tales.  Even  when  Scott 
is  farthest  from  reality — as  in  Ivanhoe  or  The  Monas- 
tery— he  makes  you  open  your  eyes  to  all  sorts  of  histo- 
rical conditions  to  which  you  would  otherwise  be  blind. 
The  domestic  novel,  even  when  its  art  is  perfect,  gives 
little  but  pleasure  at  the  best ;  at  the  worst  it  is  simply 
scandal  idealized. 

Scott  often  confessed  his  contempt  for  his  own  heroes. 
He  said  of  Edward  Waverley,  for  instance,  that  he 
was  "  a  sneaking  piece  of  imbecility,"  and  that  "  if  he 
had  married  Flora,  she  would  have  set  him  up  upon  the 
chimney-piece  as  Count  Borowlaski's  wife  used  to  do 
with  hirp.  1  am  a  bad  hand  at  depicting  a  hero,  pro- 


«.]  THE  WAVEBLEY  NOVELS.  10* 

perly  BO  called,  and  have  an  unfortunate  propensity  foi 
the  dubious  characters  of  borderers,  buccaneers,  highland 
robbers,  and  all  others  of  a  Robin-Hood  description."  *  In 
another  letter  he  says,  "  My  rogue  always,  in  despite  of 
me,  turns  out  my  hero."'  And  it  seems  very  likely  that 
in  most  of  the  situations  Scott  describes  so  well,  his  own 
course  would  have  been  that  of  his  wilder  impulses, 
and  not  that  of  his  reason.  Assuredly  he  would  never 
have  stopped  hesitating  on  the  line  between  opposite 
courses  as  his  Waverleys,  his  Mortons,  his  Osbaldistones 
do.  Whenever  he  was  really  involved  in  a  party  strife, 
he  flung  prudence  and  impartiality  to  the  winds,  and 
went  in  like  the  hearty  partisan  which  his  strong  im- 
pulses made  of  him.  But  granting  this,  I  do  not  agree 
with  his  condemnation  of  all  his  own  colourless  heroes. 
However  much  they  differed  in  nature  from  Scott  himself, 
the  even  balance  of  their  reason  against  their  sympathies 
is  certainly  well  conceived,  is  in  itself  natural,  and  is  an 
admirable  expedient  for  effecting  that  which  was  pro- 
bably its  real  use  to  Scott, — the  affording  an  opportunity 
for  the  delineation  of  all  the  pros  and  cons  of  the  case,  so 
that  the  characters  on  both  sides  of  the  struggle  should 
be  properly  understood.  Scott's  imagination  was  clearly 
far  wider — was  far  more  permeated  with  the  fixed  air  of 
sound  judgment — than  his  practical  impulses.  He  needed 
a  machinery  for  displaying  his  insight  into  both  sides  of  a 
public  quarrel,  and  his  colourless  heroes  gave  him  the 
instrument  he  needed.  Both  in  Morton's  case  (in  Old 
Mortality'),  and  in  Waverley's,  the  hesitation  is  certainly 
well  described.  Indeed  in  relation  to  the  controversy 
between  Covenanters  and  Royalists,  while  uis  political 

1  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  iv.  175-6. 
»  Lookhart'a  Life  of  Scott,  iv.  46. 
H  8 


106  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

and  martial  prepossessions  went  with  Claverhouse,  hia 
reason  and  educated  moral  feeling  certainly  were  clearly 
identified  with  Morton. 

It  is,  however,  obviously  true  that  Scott's  heroes  are 
mostly  created  for  the  sake  of  the  facility  they  give  in  de- 
lineating the  other  characters,  and  not  the  other  characters 
for  the  sake  of  the  heroes.  They  are  the  imaginative 
neutral  ground,  as  it  were,  on  which  opposing  influences 
are  brought  to  play ;  and  what  Scott  best  loved  to  paint 
was  those  who,  whether  by  nature,  by  inheritance,  or  by 
choice,  had  become  unique  and  characteristic  types  of 
one-sided  feeling,  not  those  who  were  merely  in  process  of 
growth,  and  had  not  ranged  themselves  at  all.  Mr. 
Carlyle,  who,  as  I  have  said  before,  places  Scott's  romances 
far  below  their  real  level,  maintains  that  these  great 
types  of  his  are  drawn  from  the  outside,  and  not  made 
actually  to  live.  "  His  Bailie  Jarvies,  Dinmonts,  Dal- 
gettys  (for  their  name  is  legion),  do  look  and  talk  like 
what  they  give  themselves  out  for;  they  are,  if  not 
created  and  made  poetically  alive,  yet  deceptively  enacted 
as  a  good  player  might  do  them.  What  more  is  wanted, 
then  ?  For  the  reader  lying  on  a  s»fa,  nothing  more ;  yet 
for  another  sort  of  reader  much.  It  were  a  long  chapter  to 
unfold  the  difference  in  drawing  a  character  between  a 
Scott  and  a  Shakespeare  or  Goethe.  Yet  it  is  a  difference 
literally  immense;  they  are  of  a  different  species;  the 
value  of  the  one  is  not  to  be  counted  in  the  coin  of  the 
other.  We  might  say  in  a  short  word,  which  covers  a  long 
matter,  that  your  Shakespeare  fashions  his  characters  from 
the  heart  outwards;  your  Scott  fashions  them  from  the 
skin  inwards,  never  getting  near  the  heart  of  them.  The 
one  set  become  living  men  and  women ;  the  other  amount 
to  little  more  than  mechanical  cases,  deceptively  painted 


*.]          THE  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.  107 

automatons."  *  And  then  he  goes  on  to  contrast  Fenella  in 
Peveril  of  ihe  Peak  with  Goethe's  Mignon.  Mr.  Car- 
lyle  could  hardly  have  chosen  a  less  fair  comparison.  H 
Goethe  is  to  be  judged  by  his  women,  let  Scott  be  judged 
by  his  men.  So  judged,  I  think  Scott  will,  as  a  painter 
of  character — of  course,  I  am  not  now  speaking  of  him  as  a 
poet,— come  out  far  above  Goethe.  Excepting  the  hero 
of  his  first  drama  (Gotz  of  the  iron  hand),  which  by  the 
way  was  so  much  in  Scott's  line  that  his  first  essay  in 
poetry  was  to  translate  it — not  very  well — I  doubt  if 
Goethe  was  ever  successful  with  his  pictures  of  men. 
Wilhelm  Meister  is,  as  Niebuhr  truly  said,  "a  mena- 
gerie of  tame  animals."  Doubtless  Goethe's  women — cer- 
tainly his  women  of  culture — are  more  truly  and  inwardly 
conceived  and  created  than  Scott's.  Except  Jeanie 
Deans  and  Madge  Wildfire,  and  perhaps  Lucy  Ashton, 
Scott's  women  are  apt  to  be  uninteresting,  either  pink  and 
white  toys,  or  hardish  women  of  the  world.  But  then  no 
one  can  compare  the  men  of  the  two  writers,  and  not  see 
Scott's  vast  pre-eminence  on  that  side. 

I  think  the  deficiency  of  his  pictures  of  women,  odd  a.« 
it  seems  to  say  so,  should  be  greatly  attributed  to  his  natural 
chivalry.  His  conception  of  women  of  his  own  or  a  higher 
class  was  always  too  romantic.  He  hardly  ventured,  as  it 
were,  in  his  tenderness  for  them,  to  look  deeply  into  their 
little  weaknesses  and  intricacies  of  character.  "With  women 
of  an  inferior  class,  he  had  not  this  feeling.  Nothing 
can  be  more  perfect  than  the  manner  in  which  he  blends 
the  dairy-woman  and  woman  of  business  in  Jeanie  Deans, 
with  the  lover  and  the  sister.  But  once  make  a  woman 
Jjeautiful,  or  in  any  way  an  object  of  homage  to  him,  and 

1  Carlyle'fi  Miscellaneous  Essays,  iv.  174-5. 


108  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.  (cut* 

Scott  bowed  so  low  before  the  image  of  her,  that  he  could 
not  go  deep  into  her  heart.  He  could  no  more  have  ana- 
lysed such  a  woman,  as  Thackeray  analyzed  Lady  Castle- 
wood,  or  Amelia,  or  Becky,  or  as  George  Eliot  analysed 
Rosamond  Vincy,  than  he  could  have  vivisected  Camp  or 
Maida.  To  some  extent,  therefore,  Scott's  pictures  of  women 
remain  something  in  the  style  of  the  miniatures  of  the 
last  age — bright  and  beautiful  beings  without  any  special 
character  in  them.  He  was  dazzled  by  a  fair  heroine.  He 
could  not  take  them  up  into  his  imagination  as  real  beings 
as  he  did  men.  But  then  how  living  are  his  men,  whether 
coarse  or  noble !  What  a  picture,  for  instance,  is  that  in 
A  Legend  •/  Montrose  of  the  conceited,  pragmatic,  but 
prompt  and  dauntless  soldier  of  fortune,  rejecting  Argyle's 
attempts  to  tamper  with  him,  in  the  dungeon  at  Inverary, 
suddenly  throwing  himself  on  the  disguised  Duke  so  soon 
as  he  detects  him  by  his  voice,  and  wresting  from  him  the 
means  of  his  own  liberation !  Who  could  read  that  scene 
and  say  for  a  moment  that  Dalgetty  is  painted  "  from  the 
skin  inwards  "  1  It  was  just  Scott  himself  breathing  his  own 
life  through  the  habits  of  a  good  specimen  of  the  mercenary 
soldier — realizing  where  the  spirit  of  hire  would  end,  and 
the  sense  of  honour  would  begin — and  preferring,  even  in  a 
dungeon,  the  audacious  policy  of  a  sudden  attack  to  that 
of  crafty  negotiation.  What  a  picture  (and  a  very  different 
one)  again  is  that  in  Redgauntlet  of  Peter  Peebles,  the 
mad  litigant,  with  face  emaciated  by  poverty  and  anxiety, 
and  rendered  wild  by  "  an  insane  lightness  about  the  eyes," 
dashing  into  the  English  magistrate's  court  for  a  warrant 
against  his  fugitive  counsel  Or,  to  take  a  third  instance, 
as  different  as  possible  from  either,  how  powerfully  con- 
ceived is  the  situation  in  Old  Mortality,  where  Balfour  of 
Hurley,  in  his  fanatic  fury  at  the  defeat  of  his  plan  for  a 


Cj  THE  WAVBBLBY  NOVELS.  109 

new  rebellion,  pushes  the  oak-tree,  which  connects  hia 
wild  retreat  with  the  outer  world,  into  the  stream,  and 
tries  to  slay  Morton  for  opposing  him.  In  such  scenes 
and  a  hundred  others — for  these  are  mere  random  examples 
— Scott  undoubtedly  painted  his  masculine  figures  from  as 
deep  and  inward  a  conception  of  the  character  of  the 
situation  as  Goethe  ever  attained,  even  in  drawing  Mignon, 
or  Klarchen,  or  Gretchen.  The  distinction  has  no  real 
existence.  Goethe's  pictures  of  women  were  no  doubt  the 
intuitions  of  genius ;  and  so  are  Scott's  of  men — and  here 
and  there  of  his  women  too.  Professional  women  he  can 
always  paint  with  power.  Meg  Dods,  the  innkeeper,  Meg 
Merrilies,  the  gipsy,  Mause  Headrigg,  the  Covenanter, 
Elspeth,  the  old  fishwife  in  The  Antiquary,  and  the  old 
crones  employed  to  nurse  and  watch,  and  lay  out  the 
corpse,  in  The  Bride  of  Lammermoor,  are  all  in  their  way 
impressive  figures. 

And  even  in  relation  to  women  of  a  rank  more  fasci- 
nating to  Scott,  and  whose  inner  character  was  perhaps  on 
that  account,  less  familiar  to  his  imagination,  grant  him  but 
a  few  hints  from  history,  and  he  draws  a  picture  which, 
for  vividness  and  brilliancy,  may  almost  compare  with 
Shakespeare's  own  studies  in  English  history.  Had 
Shakespeare  painted  the  scene  in  The  Abbot,  in  which 
Mary  Stuart  commands  one  of  her  Mary's  in  waiting  to 
tell  her  at  what  bridal  she  last  danced,  and  Mary  Fleming 
blurts  out  the  reference  to  the  marriage  of  Sebastian  at 
Holyrood,  would  any  one  hesitate  to  regard  it  as  a  stroke 
of  genius  worthy  of  the  great  dramatist  1  This  picture 
of  the  Queen's  mind  suddenly  thrown  off  its  balance,  and 
betraying,  in  the  agony  of  the  moment,  the  fear  and 
remorse  which  every  association  with  Darnley  conjured 
up,  is  painted  "  from  the  heart  outwards,"  not  "  from  the 


110  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP, 

skin  inwards,  if  ever  there  were  such  a  painting  in  the 
world.  Scott  hardly  ever  failed  in  painting  kings  01 
peasants,  queens  or  peasant- women.  There  was  something 
in  the  well-marked  type  of  both  to  catch  his  imagina- 
tion, which  can  always  hit  off  the  grander  features  of 
royalty,  and  the  homelier  features  of  laborious  humility. 
Is  there  any  sketch  traced  in  lines  of  more  sweeping  gran- 
deur and  more  impressive  force  than  the  following  of  Mary 
Stuart's  lucid  interval  of  remorse — lucid  compared  with  her 
ordinary  mood,  though  it  was  of  a  remorse  that  was  almost 
delirious — which  breaks  in  upon  her  hour  of  fascinating 
condescension  ?— 

" '  Are  they  not  a  lovely  couple,  my  Fleming  P  and  is  it  not 
heart-rending  to  think  that  I  must  be  their  ruinP' 

"  '  Not  so,'  said  Eoland  Grseme, '  it  is  we,  gracious  sove- 
reign, who  will  be  your  deliverers.'  '  Ex  oribus  parou- 
lorwm  ! '  said  the  queen,  looking  upward  ;  '  if  it  is  by  tbe 
mouth  of  these  children  that  heaven  calls  me  to  resume  the 
stately  thoughts  which  become  my  birth  and  my  rights,  thou 
wilt  grant  them  thy  protection,  and  to  me  the  power  of 
rewarding  their  zeal.'  Then  turning  to  Fleming,  she  in- 
stantly added, '  Thou  knowest,  my  friend,  whether  to  make 
those  who  have  served  me  happy,  was  not  ever  Mary's 
favourite  pastime.  When  I  have  been  rebuked  by  the  stern 
preachers  of  the  Calvinistic  heresy — when  I  have  seen  the 
fierce  countenances  of  my  nobles  averted  from  me,  has  it 
not  been  because  I  mixed  in  the  harmless  pleasures  of  the 
young  and  gay,  and  rather  for  the  sake  of  their  happiness 
than  my  own,  have  mingled  in  the  masque,  the  song  or 
the  dance,  with  the  youth  of  my  household  P  Well,  I  repent 
not  of  it — though  Knox  termed  it  sin,  and  Morton  degrada- 
tion— I  was  happy  because  I  saw  happiness  around  me: 
and  woe  betide  the  wretched  jealousy  that  can  extract  guilt 
out  of  the  overflowings  of  an  unguarded  gaiety ! — Fleming, 
if  we  are  restored  to  our  throne,  shall  we  not  have  one 
blithesome  day  at  a  blithesome  bridal,  of  which  we  must 
now  name  neither  the  bride  nor  the  bridegroom  P  But  that 


Xj  THE  WAVBBLB7  NOVELS.  Ill 

bridegroom  shall  have  the  barony  of  Blairgowrie,  a  fair 
gift  even  for  a  queen  to  give,  and  that  bride's  chaplet  shall 
be  twined  with  the  fairest  pearls  that  ever  were  found  in  the 
depths  of  Lochlomond;  and  thou  thyself,  Mary  Fleming, 
the  best  dresser  of  tires  that  ever  busked  the  tresses  of  a 
queen,  and  who  would  scorn  to  touch  those  of  any  woman 
of  lower  rank — thou  thyself  shalt  for  my  love  twine  them 
into  the  bride's  tresses. — Look,  my  Fleming,  suppose  then 
such  clustered  locks  as  these  of  our  Catherine,  they  would 
not  put  shame  upon  thy  skill.'  So  saying  she  passed  her 
hand  fondly  over  the  head  of  her  youthful  favourite,  while 
her  more  aged  attendant  replied  despondently,  'Alas, 
madam,  your  thoughts  stray  far  from  home.'  "They  do, 
my  Fleming,'  said  the  queen,  'but  is  it  well  or  kind  in 
you  to  call  them  back  P — God  knows  they  have  kept  the 
perch  this  night  but  too  closely. — Come,  I  will  recall  the 
gay  vision,  were  it  but  to  punish  them.  Yes,  at  that 
blithesome  bridal,  Mary  herself  shall  forget  the  weight  of 
sorrows,  and  the  toil  of  state,  and  herself  once  more  lead  a 
measure. — At  whose  wedding  was  it  that  we  last  danced, 
my  Fleming  P  I  think  care  has  troubled  my  memory — yet 
something  of  it  I  should  remember,  canst  thou  not  aid  me  ? 
I  know  thou  canst.'  'Alas,  madam,'  replied  the  lady. 
'  What,'  said  Mary,  '  wilt  thou  not  help  us  so  far  P  this  is 
a  peevish  adherence  to  thine  own  graver  opinion  which  holds 
our  talk  as  folly.  But  thou  art  court-bred  and  wilt  well 
understand  me  when  I  say  the  queen  commands  Lady 
Fleming  to  tell  her  when  she  led  the  last  branle.'  With  a 
face  deadly  pale  and  a  mien  as  if  she  were  about  to  sink 
into  the  earth,  the  court-bred  dame,  no  longer  daring  to 
refuse  obedience,  faltered  out,  '  Gracious  lady — if  my 
memory  err  not — it  was  at  a  masque  in  Holyrood — at  the 
marriage  of  Sebastian.'  The  unhappy  queen,  who  had 
hitherto  listened  with  a  melancholy  smile,  provoked  by  the 
reluctance  with  which  the  Lady  Fleming  brought  out  her 
story,  at  this  ill-fated  word  interrupted  her  with  a  shriek 
so  wild  and  loud  that  the  vaulted  apartment  rang,  and 
both  Roland  and  Catherine  sprung  to  their  feet  in  the 
utmost  terror  and  alarm.  Meantime,  Mary  seemed,  by  the 


113  SIE  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAT. 

train  of  horrible  ideas  thus  suddenly  excited,  surprised  not 
only  beyond  self-command,  but  for  the  moment  beyond  the 
verge  of  reason.  '  Traitress,'  she  said  to  the  Lady  Fleming, 
'  thou  wouldst  slay  thy  sovereign.  Call  my  French  guards — 
&  moi  I  a  moi  !  mes  Fran$ais  ! — I  am  beset  with  traitors  in 
mine  own  palace — they  have  murdered  my  husband — 
Rescue !  Bescue !  for  the  Queen  of  Scotland ! '  She  started 
up  from  her  chair — her  features  late  so  exquisitely  lovely 
in  their  paleness,  now  inflamed  with  the  fury  of  frenzy,  and 
resembling  those  of  a  Bellona.  '  We  will  take  the  field  our- 
self,'  sk«5  said ;  '  warn  the  city — warn  Lothian  and  Fife — 
saddle  our  Spanish  barb,  and  bid  French  Paris  see  our 
petronel  be  charged.  Better  to  die  at  the  head  of  our  brave 
Scotsmen,  like  our  grandfather  at  Flodden,  than  of  a 
broken  heart  like  our  ill-starred  father.'  'Be  patient — be 
composed,  dearest  sovereign,'  said  Catherine;  and  then 
addressing  Lady  Fleming  angrily,  she  added,  '  How  could 
you  say  aught  that  reminded  her  of  her  husband?'  The 
word  reached  the  ear  of  the  unhappy  princess  who  caught 
it  up,  speaking  with  great  rapidity,  'Husband! — what 
husband?  Not  his  most  Christian  Majesty — he  is  ill  at 
ease — he  cannot  mount  on  horseback — not  him  of  the 
Lennox — but  it  was  the  Duke  of  Orkney  thou  wouldst  say  ?' 
'  For  God's  love,  madam,  be  patient ! '  said  the  Lady 
Fleming.  But  the  queen's  excited  imagination  could  by  no 
entreaty  be  diverted  from  its  course.  '  Bid  him  come  hither 
to  our  aid,'  she  said, '  and  bring  with  him  his  lambs,  as  he 
calls  them — Bowton,  Hay  of  Talla,  Black  Ormistbn  and 
his  kinsman  Hob — Fie,  how  swart  they  are,  and  how  they 
smell  of  sulphur !  What !  closeted  with  Morton  P  Nay,  if 
the  Douglas  and  the  Hepburn  hatch  the  complot  together, 
the  bird  when  it  breaks  the  shell  will  scare  Scotland,  will 
it  not,  my  Fleming  P '  '  She  grows  wilder  and  wilder,'  said 
Fleming.  '  We  have  too  many  hearers  for  these  strange 
words.'  *  Roland,"  said  Catherine,  '  in  the  name  of  God 
begone ! — you  cannot  aid  us  here — leave  us  to  deal  with  her 
a/lone — away — away  1 " 

And  equally  fine  is  the  scene  in  Kenilwwih  in  which 


«.]          THE  WAVBELBT  NOVELS.          113 

Elizabeth  undertakes  the  reconciliation  of  the  haughty 
rivals,  Sussex  and  Leicester,  unaware  that  in  the  course 
of  the  audience  she  herself  will  have  to  bear  a  great  strain 
on  her  self-command,  both  in  her  feelings  as  a  queen  and 
her  feelings  as  a  lover.  Her  grand  rebukes  to  both,  her 
ill-concealed  preference  for  Leicester,  her  whispered  ridi- 
cule of  Sussex,  the  impulses  of  tenderness  which  she 
stifles,  the  flashes  of  resentment  to  which  she  gives  way, 
the  triumph  of  policy  over  private  feeling,  her  imperious 
impatience  when  she  is  baffled,  her  jealousy  as  she  grows 
suspicious  of  a  personal  rival,  her  gratified  pride  and 
vanity  when  the  suspicion  is  exchanged  for  the  clear  evi- 
dence, as  she  supposes,  of  Leicester's  love,  and  her  peremp- 
tory conclusion  of  the  audience,  bring  before  the  mind  a 
series  of  pictures  far  more  vivid  and  impressive  than 
the  greatest  of  historical  painters  could  fix  on  canvas, 
even  at  the  cost  of  the  labour  of  years.  Even  more 
brilliant,  though  not  so  sustained  and  difficult  an  effort 
of  genius,  is  the  later  scene  in  the  same  story,  in  which 
Elizabeth  drags  the  unhappy  Countess  of  Leicester  from 
her  concealment  in  one  of  the  grottoes  of  Kenilworth 
Castle,  and  strides  off  with  her,  in  a  fit  of  vindictive 
humiliation  and  Amazonian  fury,  to  confront  her  with 
her  husband.  But  this  last  scene  no  doubt  is  more  in 
Scotf  s  way.  He  can  always  paint  women  in  their  more 
masculine  moods.  Where  he  frequently  fails  is  in  the 
attempt  to  indicate  the  finer  shades  of  women's  nature. 
In  Amy  Robsart  herself,  for  example,  he  is  by  no  means 
generally  successful,  though  in  an  early  scene  her  childish 
delight  in  the  various  orders  and  decorations  of  her 
husband  is  painted  with  much  freshness  and  delicacy. 
But  wherever,  as  in  the  case  of  queens,  Scott  can  get  a 
telling  hint  from  actual  history,  he  can  always  so  use  it 
6 


114  SIB  WALT EB  SCOTT.  [CHAT. 

as  to  make  history  itself  seem  dim  to  the  equivalent  for 
it  which  he  gives  us. 

And  yet,  as  every  one  knows,  Scott  was  excessively 
free  in  his  manipulations  of  history  for  the  purposes  of 
romance.      In   Kenilworth  he  represents    Shakespeare's 
plays  as  already  in  the  mouths  of  courtiers  and  statesmen, 
though  he  lays  the  scene  in  the  eighteenth  year  of  Eliza- 
beth, when  Shakespeare  was  hardly  old  enough  to  rob  an 
orchard.     In   Woodstock,  on  the  contrary,  he  insists,  if 
you  compare  Sir  Henry  Lee's  dates  with  the  facts,  that 
Shakespeare  died  twenty  years  at  least  before  he  actually 
died.     The  historical  basis,  again,  of  Woodstock  and  of 
Redgauntlet  is  thoroughly  untrustworthy,  and  aboiit  all  the 
minuter  details  of  history, — unless  so  far  as  they  were 
characteristic  of  the  age, — I  do  not  suppose  that  Scott 
in  his  romances  ever  troubled  himself  at  all.     And  yet 
few  historians — not  even  Scott  himself  when  he  exchanged 
romance  for  history — ever  drew  the  great  figures  of  history 
with  so  powerful  a  hand.     In  writing  history  and  bio- 
graphy Scott  has  little  or  no  advantage  over  very  inferior 
men.     His  pictures  of  Swift,  of  Dryden,  of  Napoleon,  are 
in  no  way  very  vivid.     It  is  only  where  he  is  working 
from  the  pure  imagination, — though  imagination  stirred 
by  historic  study, — that  he  paints  a  picture  which  follows 
us  about,  as  ii'  with  living  eyes,  instead  of  creating  for  us 
a  mere  series  of  lines  and  colours.     Indeed,  whether  Scott 
draws  truly  or  falsely,  he  draws  with  such  genius  that 
his  pictures  of  Eichard  and  Saladin,  of  Louis  XI.  and 
Charles  the  Bold,  of  Margaret  of  Anjou  and  Eene  of 
Provence,  of  Mary  Stuart  and  Elizabeth  Tudor,  of  Sussex 
and  of  Leicester,  of  James  and  Charles  and  Buckingham, 
of  the  two  Dukes  of  Argyle — the  Argyle  of  the  time 
of  the   revolution,    and    the  Argyle  of    George   IT.,— 


K.]  THE  WAVEELBT  NOVELS.  lit 

of  Queen  Caroline,  of  Claverhouse,  and  Monmouth, 
and  of  Rob  Roy,  will  live  in  English  literature  beside 
Shakespeare's  pictures — probably  less  faithful  if  more 
imaginative — of  John  and  Richard  and  the  later  Henries, 
and  all  the  great  figures  by  whom  they  were  surrounded. 
No  historical  portrait  that  we  possess  will  take  prece- 
dence— as  a  mere  portrait — of  Scott's  brilliant  study 
of  James  I.  in  The  Fortunes  of  Nigel.  Take  this  illus- 
tration for  instance,  where  George  Heriot  the  goldsmith 
(Jingling  Geordie,  as  the  king  familiarly  calls  him)  has 
just  been  speaking  of  Lord  Huntinglen,  as  "  a  man  of  the 
old  rough  world  that  will  drink  and  swear :" — 

" '  O  Geordie! '  exclaimed  the  king, '  these  arw  auld-warld 
frailties,  of  whilk  we  dare  not  pronounce  even  ourselves 
absolutely  free.  But  the  warld  grows  worse  from  day  to  day, 
Geordie.  The  juveniles  of  this  age  may  weel  say  with  the 
poet,— 

"  JEtas  parentum  pejor  avis  tulit 
Nos  nequiores — " 

This  Dalgarno  does  not  drink  so  much,  aye  or  swear  so  much, 
as  his  father,  but  he  wenches,  Geordie,  and  he  breaks  his 
word  and  oath  baith.  As  to  what  ye  say  of  the  leddy  and 
the  ministers,  we  are  all  fallible  creatures,  Geordie,  priests 
and  kings  as  weel  as  others ;  and  wha  kens  but  what  that 
may  account  for  the  difference  between  this  Dalgarno  and 
his  father  ?  The  earl  is  the  vera  soul  of  honour,  and  cares 
nae  mair  for  warld's  gear  than  a  noble  hound  tor  the  quest 
of  a  foulmart ;  but  as  for  his  son,  he  was  like  to  brazen  us 
all  out— ourselves,  Steenie,  Baby  Charles,  and  our  Council, 
till  he  heard  of  the  tocher,  and  then  by  my  kingly  crown  he 
lap  like  a  cock  at  a  grossart !  These  are  discrepancies  be- 
twirt  parent  and  son  not  to  be  accounted  for  naturally, 
according  to  Baptista  Porta,  Michael  Scott  de  secretis,  and 
others.  Ah,  Jingling  Geordie,  if  your  clouting  the  caldron, 
and  jingling  on  pots,  pans,  and  veshels  of  all  manner  of 


116  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CH&P. 

metal,  hadna  jingled  a'  yonr  grammar  out  of  your  head,  I 
could  have  touched  on  that  matter  to  you  at  mair  length.' 
....  Heriot  inquired  whether  Lord  Dalgarno  had  consented 
to  do  the  Lady  Hermione  justice.  'Troth,  man,  I  have 
small  doubt  that  he  will,'  quoth  the  king, 'I  gave  him  the 
schedule  of  her  worldly  substance,  which  you  delivered  to  us 
in  the  council,  and  we  allowed  him  half  an  hour  to  chew 
the  cud  upon  that.  It  is  rare  reading  for  bringing  him  to 
reason.  I  left  Baby  Charles  and  Steenie  laying  his  duty 
before  him,  and  if  he  can  resist  doing  what  they  desire 
him,  why  I  wish  he  would  teach  me  the  gate  of  it. 
O  Geordie,  Jingling  Geordie,  it  was  grand  to  hear  Baby 
Charles  laying  down  the  guilt  of  dissimulation,  and  Steenie 
lecturing  on  the  turpitude  of  incontinence.'  '  I  am  afraid,' 
Baid  George  Heriot,  more  hastily  than  prudently, '  I  might 
have  thought  of  the  old  proverb  of  Satan  reproving 
sin.'  '  Deil  hae  our  saul,  neighbour,'  said  the  king,  redden- 
ing, '  but  ye  are  not  blate !  I  gie  ye  licence  to  speak  freely, 
and  by  our  saul,  ye  do  not  let  the  privilege  become  lost,  non 
utendo — it  will  suffer  no  negative  prescription  in  your 
nands.  Is  it  fit,  think  ye,  that  Baby  Charles  should  let 
his  thoughts  be  publicly  seen  P  No,  no,  princes'  thoughts 
are  arcana  imperil :  qui  nescit  dissimulare,  nescit  regnare. 
Every  liege  subject  is  bound  to  speak  the  whole  truth  to  the 
king,  but  there  is  nae  reciprocity  of  obligation — and  for 
Steenie  having  been  whiles  a  dike-louper  at  a  time,  is  it 
for  you,  who  are  his  goldsmith,  and  to  whom,  I  doubt,  he 
awes  an uncomatable  sum,  to  cast  that  up  to  him?" 

Assuredly  there  is  no  undue  favouring  of  Stuarts  in 
such  a  picture  as  that. 

Scott's  humour  is,  I  think,  of  very  different  qualities  in 
relation  to  diiferent  subjects.  Certainly  he  was  at  times 
capable  of  considerable  heaviness  of  hand, — of  the  Scotch 
"  wut "  which  has  been  so  irreverently  treated  by 
English  critics.  His  rather  elaborate  jocular  introductions, 
under  the  name  of  Jedediah  Cleishbotham,  are  clearly 


x.]          THE  WAVERLEY  NOVELS.         117 

laborious  at  times.  And  even  his  own  letters  to  his 
daughter-in-law,  which  Mr.  Lockhart  seems  to  regard  as 
models  of  tender  playf  ilness  and  pleasantry,  seem  to  me 
decidedly  elephantine.  Not  unfrequently,  too,  his  stereo- 
typed jokes  weary.  Dalgetty  bores  you  almost  as  much  as 
he  would  do  in  real  life, — which  is  a  great  fault  in  art.  Brad- 
wardine  becomes  a  nuisance,  and  as  for  Sir  Piercie  Shafton, 
he  is  beyond  endurance.  Like  some  other  Scotchmen  of 
genius,  Scott  twanged  away  at  any  effective  chord  till  it 
more  than  lost  its  expressiveness.  But  in  dry  humour, 
and  in  that  higher  humour  which  skilfully  blends  the 
ludicrous  and  the  pathetic,  so  that  it  is  hardly  possible  to 
separate  between  smiles  and  tears,  Scott  is  a  master.  His 
canny  innkeeper,  who,  having  sent  away  all  the  pease- 
meal  to  the  camp  of  the  Covenanters,  and  all  the  oatmeal 
(with  deep  professions  of  duty)  to  the  castle  and  its 
cavaliers,  in  compliance  with  the  requisitions  sent  to 
him  on  each  side,  admits  with  a  sigh  to  his  daughter 
that  "  they  maun  gar  wheat  flour  serve  themsels  for  a 
blink," — his  firm  of  solicitors,  Greenhorn  and  Grinder- 
son,  whose  senior  partner  writes  respectfully  to  clients  in 
prosperity,  and  whose  junior  partner  writes  familiarly  to 
those  in  adversity, — his  arbitrary  nabob  who  asks  how  the 
devil  any  one  should  be  able  to  mix  spices  so  well  "  as 
one  who  has  been  where  they  grow ;" — his  little  ragamuffin 
who  indignantly  denies  that  he  has  broken  his  promise 
not  to  gamble  away  his  sixpences  at  pitch-and-toss  because 
he  has  gambled  them  away  at  "  neevie-neevie-nick-nack," — 
and  similar  figures  abound  in  his  tales, — are  all  creations 
which  make  one  laugh  inwardly  as  we  read.  But  he  has 
a  much  higher  humour  still,  that  inimitable  power  of 
shading  off  ignorance  into  knowledge  and  simplicity  into 
wisdom,  which  makes  his  picture  of  Jeanie  Deans,  for 


118  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

instance,  BO  humorous  as  well  as  so  affecting.  When 
Jeanie  reunites  her  father  to  her  husband  by  reminding  the 
former  how  it  would  sometimes  happen  that  "  twa  precious 
saints  might  pu'  sundrywise  like  twa  cows  riving  at  the 
same  hayband,"  she  gives  us  an  admirable  instance  of 
Scott's  higher  humour.  Or  take  Jeanie  Deans's  letter  to 
her  father  communicating  to  him  the  pardon  of  his 
daughter  and  her  own  interview  with  the  Queen : — 

"DEAREST  AND  TRTTLY  HONOURED  FATHER. — This  comes 
with  n>y  duty  to  inform  you,  that  it  has  pleased  God  to 
redeem  that  captivitie  of  my  poor  sister,  in  respect  the 
Queen's  blessed  Majesty,  for  whom  we  are  ever  bound  to 
pray,  hath  redeemed  her  soul  from  the  slayer,  granting  the 
ransom,  of  her,  whilk  is  ane  pardon  or  reprieve.  And  I  spoke 
with  the  Queen  face  to  face,  and  yet  live ;  for  she  is  not 
muckle  differing  from  other  grand  leddies,  saving  that  she 
has  a  stately  presence,  and  een  like  a  blue  huntin'  hawk's, 
whilk  gaed  throu'  and  throu'  me  like  a  Highland  durk — And 
all  this  good  was,  alway  under  the  Great  Giver,  to  whom  all 
are  but  instruments,  wrought  for  us  by  the  Duk  of  Argile, 
wha  is  ane  native  true-hearted  Scotsman,  and  not  pridefu', 
like  other  folk  we  ken  of — and  likewise  skeely  enow  in  bestial, 
whereof  he  has  promised  to  gie  me  twa  Devonshire  kye,  of 
which  he  is  enamoured,  although  I  do  still  hand  by  the  real 
hawkit  Airshire  breed — and  I  have  promised  him  a  cheese ; 
and  I  wad  wuss  ye,  if  Gowans,  the  brockit  cow,  has  a  quey, 
that  she  suld  suck  her  fill  of  milk,  as  I  am  given  to  under- 
stand he  has  none  of  that  breed,  and  is  not  scornfu'  but  will 
take  a  thing  frae  a  puir  body,  that  it  may  lighten  their  heart 
of  the  loading  of  debt  that  they  awe  him.  Also  his  honour 
the  Duke  will  accept  ane  of  our  Dunlop  cheeses,  and  it  sail 
be  my  f  ant  if  a  better  was  ever  yearned  in  Lowden." — [Here 
follow  some  observations  respecting  the  breed  of  cattle,  and 
the  produce  of  the  dairy,  which  it  is  our  intention  to  forward 
to  the  Board  of  Agriculture.] — "  Nevertheless,  these  are  but 
matters  of  the  after-harvest,  in  respect  of  the  great  good 
wiieh  Providence  hath  gifted  us  with — and,  in  especial,  poor 


x.]  THE  WAVEBLEY  NOVELS.  119 

Effie's  life.  And  oh,  my  dear  father,  since  it  hath  pleased 
God  to  be  merciful  to  her,  let  her  not  want  your  free  pardon, 
whilk  will  make  her  meet  to  be  ane  vessel  of  grace,  and  also 
a  comfort  to  your  ain  graie  hairs.  Dear  Father,  will  ye  let 
the  Laird  ken  that  we  have  had  friends  strangely  raised  up 
to  us,  and  that  the  talent  whilk  he  lent  me  will  be  thankfully 
repaid.  I  hae  some  of  it  to  the  fore  ;  and  the  rest  of  it  is 
not  knotted  up  in  ane  purse  or  napkin,  but  iu  ane  wee  bit 
paper,  as  is  the  fashion  heir,  whilk  I  am  assured  is  gude  for 
the  siller.  And,  dear  father,  through  Mr.  Butler's  means  I 
hae  gude  friendship  with  the  Duke,  for  there  had  been  kind- 
ness between  their  forbears  in  the  auld  troublesome  time 
byepast.  And  Mrs.  Glass  nas  been  kind  like  my  very 
mother.  She  has  a  braw  house  here,  and  lives  bien  and 
warm,  wi'  twa  servant  lasses,  and  a  man  and  a  callant  in  the 
shop.  And  she  is  to  send  you  doun  a  pound  of  her  hie- 
dried,  and  some  other  tobaka,  and  we  maun  think  of  some 
propine  for  her,  since  her  kindness  hath  been  great.  And 
the  Duk  is  to  send  the  pardon  doun  by  an  express  mes- 
senger, in  respect  that  I  canna  travel  sae  fast ;  and  I  am  to 
come  doun  wi'  twa  of  his  Honour's  servants — that  is,  John 
Archibald,  a  decent  elderly  gentleman,  that  says  he  has  seen 
you  lang  syne,  when  ye  were  buying  beasts  in  the  west  f rae 
the  Laird  of  Aughtermuggitie — but  maybe  ye  winna  mind 
him — ony  way,  he's  a  civil  man — and  Mrs.  Dolly  Dutton, 
that  is  to  be  dairy -maid  at  Inverara :  and  they  bring  me  on 
as  far  as  Glasgo',  whilk  will  make  it  nae  pinch  to  win  hame, 
whilk  I  desire  of  all  things.  May  the  Giver  of  all  good 
things  keep  ye  in  your  outgauns  and  incomings,  whereof 
devoutly  prayeth  your  loving  dauter, 

"JEAN  DEANS." 

This  contains  an  example  of  Scott's  rather  heavy  jocu- 
larity as  well  as  giving  us  a  fine  illustration  of  his  highest 
and  deepest  and  sunniest  humour.  Coming  where  it 
does,  the  joke  inserted  about  the  Board  of  Agriculture  is 
rattier  like  the  gambol  of  a  rhinoceros  trying  to  imitate 
cae  curvettmgs  of  a  thoroughbred  horse. 


120  SIE  WALTEB  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

Some  of  the  finest  touches  of  his  humour  are  no  doubt 
much  heightened  by  his  perfect  command  of  the  genius 
as  well  as  the  dialect  of  a  peasantry,  in  whom  a  true 
culture  of  mind  and  sometimes  also  of  heart  is  found  ir 
the  closest  possible  contact  with  the  humblest  pursuits 
and  the  quaintest  enthusiasm  for  them.  But  Scott,  with 
all  his  turn  for  irony — and  Mr.  Lockhart  says  that  even  on 
his  death-bed  he  used  towards  his  children  the  same  sort 
of  good-humoured  irony  to  which  he  had  always  accus- 
tomed them  in  his  life — certainly  never  gives  us  any 
example  of  that  highest  irony  which  is  found  so  frequently 
in  Shakespeare,  which  touches  the  paradoxes  of  the 
spiritual  life  of  the  children  of  earth,  and  which  reached 
its  highest  point  in  Isaiah.  Now  and  then  in  his  latest 
diaries — the  diaries  written  in  his  deep  affliction — 
he  comes  near  the  edge  of  it.  Once,  for  instance,  he 
says,  "  What  a  strange  scene  if  the  surge  of  conversation 
could  suddenly  ebb  like  the  tide,  and  show  us  the  state  of 
people's  real  minds ! 

'  No  eyes  the  rocks  discover 
Which  lurk  beneath  the  deep.' 

Life  could  not  be  endured  were  it  seen  in  reality." 
But  this  is  not  irony,  only  the  sort  of  meditation  which, 
in  a  mind  inclined  to  thrust  deep  into  the  secrets  of  life's 
paradoxes,  is  apt  to  lead  to  irony.  Scott,  however,  does 
not  thrust  deep  in  this  direction.  He  met  the  cold  steel 
which  inflicts  the  deepest  interior  wounds,  like  a  soldier, 
and  never  seems  to  have  meditated  on  the  higher  paradoxes 
of  life  till  reason  reeled.  The  irony  of  Hamlet  is  far  from 
Scott.  His  imagination  was  essentially  one  of  distinct 
embodiment.  He  never  even  seemed  so  much  as  to  con- 
template that  sundering  of  substance  and  form,  that  rending 


1.]  THE  WAVEBLEY  NOVELS.  121 

away  of  outward  garments,  that  unclothing  of  the  soul,  in 
order  that  it  might  be  more  effectually  clothed  upon,  which 
is  at  the  heart  of  anything  that  may  be  called  spiritual 
irony.  The  constant  abiding  of  his  mind  within  the 
well-defined  forms  of  some  one  or  other  of  the  conditions  of 
outward  life  and  manners,  among  the  scores  of  different 
spheres  of  human  habit,  was,  no  doubt,  one  of  the  secrets 
of  his  genius ;  but  it  was  also  its  greatest  limitation. 
16*  9 


CHAPTER  XL 

MORALITY   AND    RELIGION. 

THE  very  same  causes  which  limited  Scott's  humour  and 
irony  to  the  commoner  fields  of  experience,  and  prevented 
him  from  ever  introducing  into  his  stories  characters  of 
the  highest  type  of  moral  thoughtfulness,  gave  to  his  own 
morality  and  religion,  which  were,  I  think,  true  to  the 
core  so  far  as  they  went,  a  shade  of  distinct  conven- 
tionality. It  is  no  doubt  quite  true,  as  he  himself  tells 
us,  that  he  took  more  interest  in  his  mercenaries  and 
moss-troopers,  outlaws,  gipsies,  and  beggars,  than  he 
did  in  the  fine  ladies  and  gentlemen  under  a  cloud 
whom  he  adopted  as  heroines  and  heroes.  But  that  was 
the  very  sign  of  his  conventionalism.  Though  he  inte- 
rested himself  more  in  these  irregular  persons,  he  hardly 
ever  ventured  to  paint  their  inner  life  so  as  to  show  how 
little  there  was  to  choose  between  the  sins  of  those  who 
are  at  war  with  society  and  the  sins  of  those  who  bend  to 
the  yoke  of  society.  He  widened  rather  than  narrowed 
the  chasm  between  the  outlaw  and  the  respectable  citizen, 
even  while  he  did  not  disguise  his  own  romantic  interest 
in  the  former.  He  extenuated,  no  doubt,  the  sins  of  all 
brave  and  violent  defiere  of  the  law,  as  distinguished  from 
the  sins  of  crafty  and  cunning  abusers  of  the  law.  But 
the  leaning  he  had  to  the  former  was,  as  he  wae  willing  to 


n.]  MORALITY  AND  RELIGION.  128 

admit,  what  he  regarded  as  a  "  naughty  "  leaning.  He  did 
not  attempt  for  a  moment  to  balance  accounts  between 
them  and  society.  He  paid  his  tribute  as  a  matter  of 
course  to  the  established  morality,  and  only  put  in  a  word 
or  two  by  way  of  attempt  to  diminish  the  severity  of  the 
sentence  on  the  bold  transgressor.  And  then,  where  what 
is  called  the  "  law  of  honour  "  comes  in  to  traverse  the  law 
of  religion,  he  had  no  scruple  in  setting  aside  the  latter 
in  favour  of  the  customs  of  gentlemen,  without  any 
attempt  to  justify  that  course.  Yet  it  is  evident  from 
various  passages  in  his  writings  that  he  held  Christian 
duty  inconsistent  with  duelling,  and  that  he  held  himself 
a  sincere  Christian.  In  spite  of  this,  when  he  was  fifty- 
six,  and  under  no  conceivable  hurry  or  perturbation  of 
feeling,  but  only  concerned  to  defend  his  own  conduct 
— which  was  indeed  plainly  right — as  to  a  political  dis- 
closure which  he  had  made  in  his  life  of  Napoleon,  he 
asked  his  old  friend  William  Clerk  to  be  his  second,  if  the 
expected  challenge  from  General  Gourgaud  should  come, 
and  declared  his  firm  intention  of  accepting  it.  On  the 
strength  of  official  evidence  he  had  exposed  some  conduct 
of  General  Gourgaud's  at  St.  Helena,  which  appeared  to 
be  far  from  honourable,  and  he  thought  it  his  duty  on 
that  account  to  submit  to  be  shot  at  by  General  Gourgaud, 
if  General  Gourgaud  had  wished  it.  In  writing  to  "William 
Clerk  to  ask  bim  to  be  his  second,  he  says,  "  Like  a 
man  who  finds  himself  in  a  scrape,  General  Gourgaud  may 
wioh  to  fight  himself  out  of  it,  and  if  the  quarrel  should 
be  thrust  on  me,  why,  /  will  not  baulk  Mm,  Jackie.  He 
shall  not  dishonour  the  country  through  my  sides,  I  can 
assure  him."  In  other  words,  Scott  acted  just  as  he  had 
made  Waverley  and  others  of  his  heroes  act,  on  a  code  of 
honour  which  he  knew  to  be  false,  and  he  must  have  felt 


i£4  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT. 

In  this  case  to  be  something  worse.  He  thought  himself 
at  that  time  under  the  most  stringent  obligations  both  to 
his  creditors  and  his  children,  to  do  all  in  his  power  to 
redeem  himself  and  his  estate  from  debt.  Nay,  more,  he 
held  that  his  life  was  a  trust  from  his  Creator,  which  he 
had  no  right  to  throw  away  merely  because  a  man  whom 
he  had  not  really  injured,  was  indulging  a  strong  wish  to 
injure  him ;  but  he  could  so  little  brook  the  imputation  of 
physical  cowardice,  that  he  was  moral  coward  enough  to 
resolve  to  meet  General  Gourgaud,  if  General  Gourgaud 
lusted  after  a  shot  at  him.  Nor  is  there  any  trace  pre- 
served of  so  much  as  a  moral  scruple  in  his  own  mind  on 
the  subject,  and  this  though  there  are  clear  traces  in  hit 
other  writings  as  to  what  he  thought  Christian  morality 
required.  But  the  Border  chivalry  was  so  strong  in  Scott 
that,  on  subjects  of  this  kind  at  least,  his  morality  was 
the  conventional  morality  of  a  day  rapidly  passing 
away. 

He  showed  the  same  conventional  feeling  in  his  severity 
towards  one  of  his  own  brothers  who  had  been  guilty  of 
cowardice.  Daniel  Scott  was  the  black  sheep  of  the 
family.  He  got  into  difficulties  in  business,  formed  a  bad 
connexion  with  an  artful  woman,  and  was  sent  to  try  his 
fortunes  in  the  West  Indies.  There  he  was  employed  in 
some  service  against  a  body  of  refractory  negroes — we  do 
not  know  its  exact  nature — and  apparently  showed  the 
white  feather.  Mr.  Lockhart  says  that  "  he  returned  to 
Scotland  a  dishonoured  man;  and  though  he  found  shelter 
and  compassion  from  his  mother,  his  brother  would  never 
see  him  again.  Nay,  when,  soon  after,  his  health, 
shattered  by  dissolute  indulgence, . . .  gave  way  altogether, 
and  he  died,  as  yet  a  young  man,  the  poet  refused  either 
to  attend  bis  funeral  or  to  wear  mourning  for  him,  like  the 


n.]  MORALITY  AND  RELIGION.  IK 

rest  of  his  family."  *  Indeed  he  always  spoke  of  him  as 
his  "relative,"  not  as  his  brother.  Here  again  Scott's 
severity  was  due  to  his  brother's  failure  as  a  "  man  of 
honour,"  L  e.  in  courage.  He  was  forbearing  enough  with 
vices  of  a  different  kind ;  made  John  Ballantyne's  dissipa 
tion  the  object  rather  of  his  jokes  than  of  his  indignation ; 
and  not  only  mourned  for  him,  but  really  grieved  for  him 
when  he  died.  It  is  only  fair  to  say,  however,  that  for 
this  conventional  scorn  of  a  weakness  rather  than  a  sin, 
Scott  sorrowed  sincerely  later  in  life,  and  that  in  sketching 
the  physical  cowardice  of  Connochar  in  The  Fair  Maid  of 
Perth,  he  deliberately  made  an  attempt  to  atone  for  this 
hardness  towards  his  brother  by  showing  how  frequently 
the  foundation  of  cowardice  may  be  laid  in  perfectly 
involuntary  physical  temperament,  and  pointing  out  with 
what  noble  elements  of  disposition  it  may  be  combined. 
But  till  reflection  on  many  forms  of  human  character  had 
enlarged  Scott's  charity,  and  perhaps  also  the  range  of  his 
speculative  ethics,  he  remained  a  conventional  moralist, 
and  one,  moreover,  the  type  of  whose  conventional  code 
was  borrowed  more  from  that  of  honour  than  from  that  of 
religious  principle.  There  is  one  curious  passage  in  his 
diary,  written  very  near  the  end  of  his  life,  in  which 
Scott  even  seems  to  declare  that  conventional  standards  of 
conduct  are  better,  or  at  least  safer,  than  religious  standards 
of  conduct.  He  says  in  his  diary  for  the  15th  April, 
1828,— "Dined  with  Sir  Eobert  Inglis,  and  met  Sir 
Thomas  Acland,  my  old  and  kind  friend.  I  was  happy  to 
see  him.  He  may  be  considered  now  as  the  head  of  the 
religious  party  in  the  House  of  Commons — a  powerful 
body  which  Wilberforce  long  commanded.  It  is  a  difficult 
situation,  for  the  adaptation  of  religious  motives  to  earthly 
1  Lookharf  a  Life  of  Scott,  iii.  198-9. 


126  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

policy  is  apt — among  the  infinite  delusions  of  tlie  human 
heart — to  be  a  snare."1  His  letters  to  kis  eldest  son, 
the  young  cavalry  officer,  on  his  first  start  in  life,  are 
much  admired  by  Mr.  Lockhart,  but  to  me  they  read 
a  little  hard,  a  little  worldly,  and  extremely  conven- 
tional. Conventionality  was  certainly  to  his  mind  almost 
a  virtue. 

Of  enthusiasm  in  religion  Scott  always  spoke  very  severely* 
both  in  his  novels  and  in  his  letters  and  private  diary. 
In  writing  to  Lord  Montague,  he  speaks  of  such  enthusiasm 
as  was  then  prevalent  at  Oxford,  and  which  makes,  he  says, 
"  religion  a  motive  and  a  pretext  for  particular  lines  of 
thinking  in  politics  and  in  temporal  affairs  "  [as  if  it  could 
help  doing  that !]  as  "  teaching  a  new  way  of  going  to  the 
devil  for  God's  sake,"  and  this  expressly,  because  when 
the  young  are  infected  with  it,  it  disunites  families,  and 
sets  "  children  in  opposition  to  their  parents." 2  He  gives 
us,  however,  one  reason  for  his  dread  of  anything  like  en- 
thusiasm, which  is  not  conventional ; — that  it  interferes 
with  the  submissive  and  tranquil  mood  which  is  the  only 
true  religious  mood.  Speaking  in  his  diary  of  a  weakness 
and  fluttering  at  the  heart,  from  which  he  had  suffered,  he 
says,  "  It  is  an  awful  sensation,  and  would  have  made  an 
enthusiast  of  me,  had  I  indulged  my  imagination  on  reli- 
gious subjects.  I  have  been  always  careful  to  place  my 
mind  in  the  most  tranquil  posture  which  it  can  assume, 
during  my  private  exercises  of  devotion."  *  And  in  this 
avoidance  of  indulging  the  imagination  on  religious,  or 
even  spiritual  subjects,  Scott  goes  far  beyond  Shakespeare. 
I  do  not  think  there  is  a  single  study  in  all  his  romancea 

i  Lockhart'a  Life  of  Scott,  is.  231. 

a  Ibid.,  vii.  256-&  »  Ibid.,  viii.  299. 


«0  MORALITY  AND  RELIGION.  127 

of  what  may  be  fairly  called  a  pre-eminently  spiritual 
character  as  such,  though  Jeanie  Deans  approaches  nearest 
to  it.  The  same  may  be  said  of  Shakespeare.  But 
Shakespeare,  though  he  has  never  drawn  a  pre-eminently 
spiritual  character,  often  enough  indulged  his  imagination 
while  meditating  on  spiritual  themes. 


CHAPTER 

DISTRACTIONS   AND   AMUSEMENTS  AT  ABBOTBPOBO. 

BETWEEN  1814  and  the  end  of  1825,  Scott's  literary 
labour  was  interrupted  only  by  one  serious  illness,  and 
hardly  interrupted  by  that, — by  a  few  journeys, — one  to 
Paris  after  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  and  several  to  London, 
— and  by  the  worry  of  a  constant  stream  of  intrusive  visi- 
tors. Of  his  journeys  he  has  left  some  records ;  but  I 
cannot  say  that  I  think  Scott  would  ever  have  reached,  as 
a  mere  observer  and  recorder,  at  all  the  high  point  which 
he  reached  directly  his  imagination  went  to  work  to  create 
a  story.  That  imagination  was,  indeed,  far  less  subser- 
vient to  his  mere  perceptions  than  to  his  constructive 
powers.  PauVs  Letters  to  his  Kinsfolk — the  records  of  his 
Paris  journey  after  "Waterloo — for  instance,  are  not  at  all 
above  the  mark  of  a  good  special  correspondent.  His 
imagination  was  less  the  imagination  of  insight,  than 
the  imagination  of  one  whose  mind  was  a  great  kaleido- 
scope of  human  life  and  fortunes.  But  far  more  interrupt- 
ing than  either  illness  or  travel,  was  the  lion-hunting  of 
which  Scott  became  the  object,  directly  after  the  publica- 
tion of  the  earlier  novels.  In  great  measure,  no  doubt,  on 
account  of  the  mystery  as  to  his  authorship,  his  fame 
became  something  oppressive.  At  one  time  as  many  as 
tixteen  parties  of  visitors  applied  to  see  Abbotsford  in  a 
single  day.  Strangers, — especially  the  American  travel- 


m.]  DISTRACTIONS  AND  AMUSEMENTS.  129 

lets  of  that  day,  who  were  much  less  reticent  and  more 
irrepressible  than  the  American  travellers  of  this, — would 
come  to  him  without  introductions,  facetiously  cry  out 
"  Prodigious !  "  in  imitation  of  Dominie  Sampson,  what- 
ever they  were  shown,  inquire  whether  the  new  house 
was  called  Tullyveolan  or  Tilly tudlem,  cross-examine, 
with  open  note-books,  as  to  Scott's  age,  and  the  age  of  his 
wife,  and  appear  tc  be  taken  quite  by  surprise  when  they 
were  bowed  out  without  being  asked  to  dine.1  In  those 
days  of  high  postage  Scott's  bill  for  letters  "  seldom  came 
under  150?.  a  year,"  and  "  as  to  coach  parcels,  they  were  a 
perfect  ruination."  On  one  occasion  a  mighty  package 
caine  by  post  from  the  United  States,  for  ^hich  Scott  had 
to  pay  five  pounds  sterling.  It  contained  a  MS.  play 
called  The  Cherokee  Lovers,  by  a  young  lady  of  New  York, 
who  begged  Scott  to  read  and  correct  it,  write  a  prologue 
and  epilogue,  get  it  put  on  the  stage  at  Drury  Lane,  and 
negotiate  with  Constable  or  Murray  for  the  copyright.  In 
about  a  fortnight  another  packet  not  less  formidable 
arrived,  charged  with  a  similar  postage,  which  Scott,  not 
grown  cautious  through  experience,  recklessly  opened ;  out 
jumped  a  duplicate  copy  of  The  Cherokee  Lovers,  with  a 
second  letter  from  the  authoress,  stating  that  as  the  wea- 
ther had  been  stormy,  and  she  feared  that  something 
might  have  happened  to  her  former  MS.,  she  had  thought 
it  prudent  to  send  him  a  duplicate.'  Of  course,  when 
fame  reached  such  a  point  as  this,  it  became  both  a  worry 
and  a  serious  waste  of  money,  and  what  was  far  more 
valuable  than  money,  of  time,  privacy,  and  tranquillity  of 
mind.  And  though  no  man  ever  bore  such  worries  with 
the  equanimity  of  Scott,  no  man  ever  received  less  plea- 

1  Lookhart'a  Life  of  Scott,  T.  387. 
*  Lookhart's  Life  of  Scott,  T.  382. 


130  SIE  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

sure,  fi\  >m  the  adulation  of  unknown  and  often  vulgar  and 
ignorant  admirers.  His  real  amusements  were  his  trees 
and  his  friends.  "  Planting  and  pruning  trees,"  he  said 
u  I  could  work  at  from  morning  to  night.  There  is  a  sort 
of  self- congratulation,  a  little  tickling  self-flattery,  in  the 
idea  that  while  you  are  pleasing  and  amusing  yourself, 
you  are  seriously  contributing  to  the  future  welfare  of 
the  country,  and  that  your  very  acorn  may  send  its  future 
ribs  of  oak  to  future  victories  like  Trafalgar," l — for  the 
day  of  iron  ships  was  not  yet.  And  again,  at  a  later 
stage  of  his  planting  : — "  You  can  have  no  idea  of  the 
exquisite  delight  of  a  planter, — he  is  like  a  painter  laying 
on  his  colours, — at  every  moment  he  sees  his  effects  coming 
out.  There  is  no  art  or  occupation  comparable  to  this ;  it 
is  full  of  past,  present,  and  future  enjoyment.  I  look 
back  to  the  time  when  there  was  not  a  tree  here;  only  bare 
heath ;  I  look  round  and  see  thousands  of  trees  growing  up 
all  of  which,  I  may  say  almost  each  of  which,  have  received 
my  personal  attention.  I  remember,  five  years  ago,  look- 
ing forward  with  the  most  delighted  expectation  to  this 
very  hour,  and  as  each  year  has  passed,  the  expectation 
has  gone  on  increasing.  I  do  the  same  now.  I  anticipate 
what  this  plantation  and  that  one  will  presently  be,  if  only 
taken  care  of,  and  there  is  not  a  spot  of  which  I  do  not 
watch  the  progress.  Unlike  building,  or  even  painting,  or 
indeed  any  other  kind  of  pursuit,  this  has  no  end,  and 
is  never  interrupted ;  but  goes  on  from  day  to  day,  and 
from  year  to  year,  with  a  perpetually  augmenting  interest. 
Farming  I  hate.  What  have  I  to  do  with  fattening 
and  killing  beasts,  or  raising  corn,  only  to  cut  it  down, 
and  to  wrangle  with  fanners  about  prices,  and  to  be  con- 
stantly at  the  mercy  of  the  seasons  1  There  can  be  no 
1  Juockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  ia-  888- 


ill.]  DISTINCTIONS  AND  AlfUSEMENTSL  131 

such  disappointments  or  annoyances  in  planting  trees." l 
Scott  indeed  regarded  planting  as  a  mode  of  so  moulding 
the  form  and  colour  of  the  outward  world,  that  nature  herself 
became  indebted  to  him  for  finer  outlines,  richer  masses  of 
colour,  and  deeper  shadows,  as  well  as  for  more  fertile  and 
sheltered  soils.  And  he  was  as  skilful  in  producing  the 
last  result,  as  he  was  in  the  artistic  effects  of  his  plant- 
ing. In  the  essay  on  the  planting  of  waste  lands,  he 
mentions  a  story, — drawn  from  his  own  experience, — of  a 
planter,  who  having  scooped  out  the  lowest  part  of  his 
land  for  enclosures,  and  "  planted  the  wood  round  them  in 
masses  enlarged  or  contracted  as  the  natural  lying  of  the 
ground  seemed  to  dictate,"  met,  six  years  after  these 
changes,  his  former  tenant  on  the  ground,  and  said  to  him, 

"  I  suppose,  Mr.  E ,  you  will  say  I  have  ruined  your 

farm  by  laying  half  of  it  into  woodland  V  "I  should  have 

expected  it,  sir,"  answered  Mr.  E ,  "if  you  had  told 

me  beforehand  what  you  were  going  to  do ;  but  I  am  now 
of  a  very  different  opinion;  and  as  I  am  looking  for  land 
at  present,  if  you  are  inclined  to  take  for  the  remaining 
sixty  acres  the  same  rent  which  I  formerly  gave  for  a  hun- 
dred and  twenty,  I  will  give  you  an  offer  to  that  amount. 
I  consider  the  benefit  of  the  enclosing,  and  the  complete 
shelter  afforded  to  the  fields,  as  an  advantage  which  fairly 
counterbalances  the  loss  of  one-half  of  the  land."* 

And  Scott  was  not  only  thoughtful  in  his  own 
planting,  but  induced  his  neighbours  to  become  so  too. 
So  great  was  their  regard  for  him,  that  many  of  them 
planted  their  estates  as  much  with  reference  to  the  effect 
which  their  plantations  would  have  on  the  view  from 
Abboteford,  as  with  reference  to  the  effect  they  would 

»  Lockhart'g  Life  of  Scott,  vii.  287-8. 

*  Sootfs  Miscellaneous  Prose  Works,  xxi.  22-8, 


182  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHA?. 

have  on  Jiie  view  from  their  own  grounds.  Many  waa 
the  consultation  which  he  and  his  neighbours,  Scott  of 
Gala,  for  instance,  and  Mr.  Henderson  of  Eildon  Hall,  had 
together  on  the  effect  which  would  be  produced  on  the 
view  from  their  respective  houses,  of  the  planting  going  on 
upon  the  lands  of  each.  The  reciprocity  of  feeling  was 
such  that  the  various  proprietors  acted  more  like  brothers 
in  this  matter,  than  like  the  jealous  and  exclusive  creatures 
which  landowners,  as  such,  so  often  are. 

Next  to  his  interest  in  the  management  and  growth 
of  his  own  little  estate  was  Scott's  interest  in  the  manage- 
ment and  growth  of  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch's.  To  the 
Duke  he  looked  up  as  the  head  of  his  clan,  with  some- 
thing almost  more  than  a  feudal  attachment,  greatly 
enhanced  of  course  by  the  personal  friendship  which 
he  had  formed  for  him  in  early  life  as  the  Earl  of 
Dalkeith.  This  mixture  of  feudal  and  personal  feeling 
towards  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Buccleuch  continued 
during  their  lives.  Scott  was  away  on  a  yachting  tour 
to  the  Shetlands  and  Orkneys  in  July  and  August,  1814, 
and  it  was  during  this  absence  that  the  Duchess  of 
Buccleuch  died.  Scott,  who  was  in  no  anxiety  about 
her,  employed  himself  in  writing  an  amusing  descriptive 
epistle  to  the  Duke  in  rough  verse,  chronicling  his 
voyage,  and  containing  expressions  of  the  profoundest 
reverence  for  the  goodness  and  charity  of  the  Duchess, 
a  letter  which  did  not  reach  its  destination  till  after  the 
Duchess's  death.  Scott  himself  heard  of  her  death  by 
chance  when  they  landed  for  a  few  hours  on  the  coast  of 
Ireland;  he  was  quite  overpowered  by  the  news,  and  went 
to  bed  only  to  drop  into  short  nightmare  sleeps,  and  to 
wake  with  the  dim  memory  of  some  heavy  weight  at  his 
heart.  The  Duke  himself  died  five  years  later,  leaving 


a«.j        DISTRACTIONS  AND  AMUSEMENTS.         isa 

a  son  only  thirteen  years  of  age  (the  present  Duke),  ovei 
whose  interests,  both  as  regarded  his  education  and  his 
estates,  Scott  watched  as  jealously  as  if  they  had  been 
those  of  his  own  son.  Many  were  the  anxious  letters  lit 
wrote  to  Lord  Montague  as  to  his  "  young  chiefs  "  affairs, 
as  he  called  them,  and  great  his  pride  in  watching  the 
promise  of  his  youth.  Nothing  can  be  clearer  than  that 
to  Scott  the  feudal  principle  was  something  far  beyond  a 
name  ;  that  he  had  at  least  as  much  pride  in  his  devotion 
to  his  chief,  as  he  had  in  founding  a  house  which  he 
believed  would  increase  the  influence — both  territorial 
and  personal — of  the  clan  of  Scotts.  The  unaffected 
reverence  which  he  felt  for  the  Duke,  though  mingled 
with  warm  personal  affection,  showed  that  Scott's  feudal 
feeling  had  something  real  and  substantial  in  it,  which 
did  not  vanish  even  when  it  came  into  close  contact  with 
strong  personal  feelings.  This  reverence  is  curiously 
marked  in  his  letters.  He  speaks  of  "  the  distinction  of 
rank  "  being  ignored  by  both  sides,  as  of  something  quite 
exceptional,  but  it  was  never  really  ignored  by  him,  for 
though  he  continued  to  write  to  the  Duke  as  an  intimate 
friend,  it  was  with  a  mingling  of  awe,  very  different  indeed 
from  that  which  he  ever  adopted  to  Ellis  or  Erskine.  It 
is  necessary  to  remember  this,  not  only  in  estimating  the 
strength  of  the  feeling  which  made  him  so  anxious  to 
become  himself  the  founder  of  a  house  within  a  house, — 
of  a  new  branch  of  the  clan  of  Scotts, — but  in  estimating 
the  loyalty  which  Scott  always  displayed  to  one  of  the 
least  respectable  of  English  sovereigns,  George  IV., — a 
matter  of  which  I  must  now  say  a  few  words,  not  only 
because  it  led  to  Scott's  receiving  the  baronetcy,  but 
because  it  forms  to  my  mind  the  most  grotesque  of  all 
the  threads  in  the  lot  of  this  strong  and  proud  man. 


CHAPTER  Xnt 

BCOTT   AND   GEORGE   IV. 

THE  first  relations  of  Scott  with  the  Court  were  oddly 
enough,  formed  with  the  Princess,  not  with  the  Prnce  ol 
Wales.  In  1806  Scott  dined  with  the  Princess  of  Wales  at 
Blackheath,  and  spoke  of  his  invitation  as  a  great  honour. 
He  wrote  a  tribute  to  her  father,  the  Duke  of  Brunswick, 
in  the  introduction  to  one  of  the  cantos  of  Marmion,  and 
received  from  the  Princess  a  silver  vase  in  acknowledgment 
of  this  passage  in  the  poem.  Scott's  relations  with  the 
Prince  Eegent  seem  to  have  begun  in  an  offer  to  Scott  of 
the  Laureateship  in  the  summer  of  1813,  an  offer  which 
Scott  would  have  found  it  very  difficult  to  accept,  so 
strongly  did  his  pride  revolt  at  the  idea  of  having  to 
commemorate  in  verse,  as  an  official  duty,  all  conspicuous 
incidents  affecting  the  throne.  But  he  was  at  the  time 
of  the  offer  in  the  thick  of  his  first  difficulties  on  account 
of  Messrs.  John  Ballantyne  and  Co.,  and  it  was  only  the 
Duke  of  Buccleuch's  guarantee  of  4000Z. — a  guarantee  sub- 
sequently cancelled  by  Scott's  paying  the  sum  for  which  it 
was  a  security — that  enabled  him  at  this  time  to  decline 
what,  after  Southey  had  accepted  it,  he  compared  in  a 
letter  to  Southey  to  the  herring  for  which  the  poor  Scotch 
clergyman  gave  thanks  in  a  grace  wherein  he  described 
it  as  "  even  this,  the  vary  least  of  Providence's  inerciea." 


xiii.]  SCOTT  AND  GEORGE  IV.  135 

In  March,  1815,  Scott  being  then  in  London,  the  Prinoa 
Regent  asked  him  to  dinner,  addressed  him  uniformly  as 
Walter,  and  struck  up  a  friendship  with  him  which  seems 
to  have  lasted  their  lives,  and  which  certainly  did  much 
more  honour  to  George  than  to  Sir  Walter  Scott.  It  is 
impossible  not  'to  think  rather  better  of  George  IV.  for 
thus  valuing,  and  doing  his  best  in  every  way  to  show  his 
value  for,  Scott.  It  is  equally  impossible  not  to  think 
rather  worse  of  Scott  for  thus  valuing,  and  in  every  way 
doing  his  best  to  express  his  value  for,  this  very  worthless, 
though  by  no  means  incapable  king.  The  consequences 
were  soon  seen  in  the  indignation  with  which  Scott  began 
to  speak  of  the  Princess  of  Wales's  sins.  In  1806,  in  the 
squib  he  wrote  on  Lord  Melville's  acquittal,  when  im- 
peached for  corruption  by  the  Liberal  Government,  he 
had  written  thus  of  the  Princess  Caroline : — 

"  Our  King,  too — our  Princess, — I  dare  not  say  more,  sir, — 

May  Providence  watch  them  with  mercy  and  might ! 
While  there's  one  Scottish  hand  that  can  wag  a  claymore,  sir, 
They  shall  ne'er  want  a  friend  to  stand  up  for  their  right. 
Be  damn'd  he  that  dare  not — 
For  my  part  I'll  spare  not 
To  beauty  afflicted  a  tribute  to  give ; 
Fill  ic  up  steadily, 
Drink  it  off  readily, 
Here's  to  the  Princess,  and  long  may  she  live." 

But  whoever  "  stood  up  "  for  the  Princess's  right,  certainly 
Scott  did  not  do  so  after  his  intimacy  with  the  Prince 
Regent  began.  He  mentioned  her  only  with  severity, 
and  in  one  letter  at  least,  written  to  his  brother,  with 
something  much  coarser  than  severity;1  but  tie  king's 
similar  vices  did  not  at  all  alienate  hin>  from  what  at 

i  Lookhart'a  Life  of  Scott,  vi.  229-30. 


itt  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

least  had  all  the  appearance  of  a  deep  personal  devotion  to 
his  sovereign.  The  first  baronet  whom  George  IV.  made 
on  succeeding  to  the  throne,  after  his  long  Regency,  was 
Scott,  who  not  only  accepted  the  honour  gratefully,  but 
dwelt  with  extreme  pride  on  the  fact  that  it  was  offered  to 
him  by  the  king  himself,  and  was  in  no  way  due  to  the 
prompting  of  any  minister's  advice.  He  wrote  to  Joanna 
Baillie  on  hearing  of  the  Regent's  intention — for  the  offer 
was  made  by  the  Regent  at  the  end  of  1818,  though  it 
was  not  actually  conferred  till  after  George's  accession, 
namely,  on  the  30th  March,  1820,— "The  Duke  of 
Buccleuch  and  Scott  of  Harden,  who,  as  the  heads  of 
my  clan  and  the  sources  of  my  gentry,  are  good  judges 
of  what  I  ought  to  do,  have  both  given  me  their  earnest 
opinion  to  accept  of  an  honour  directly  derived  from  the 
source  of  honour,  and  neither  begged  nor  bought,  as  is 
the  usual  fashion.  Several  of  my  ancestors  bore  the  title 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  and,  were  it  of  consequence, 
I  have  no  reason  to  be  ashamed  of  the  decent  and  respect- 
able persons  who  connect  me  with  that  period  when  they 
carried  into  the  field,  like  Madoc, 

"  The  Crescent  at  whose  gleam  the  Cambrian  oft, 
Cursing  his  perilous  tenure,  wound  his  horn," 

so  that,  as  a  gentleman,  I  may  stand  on  as  good  a  footing 
as  other  new  creations."  *  Why  the  honour  was  any 
greater  for  coming  from  such  a  king  as  George,  than  it 
would  have  been  if  it  had  been  suggested  by  Lord  Sid- 
mouth,  or  even  Lord  Liverpool, — or  half  as  great  as  if 
Mr.  Canning  had  proposed  it,  it  is  not  easy  to  conceive. 
George  was  a  fair  judge  of  literary  merit,  but  not  one  to 

»  LockharfB  lAJe  of  Seott,  ri.  13, 14 


Hit]  SCOTT  AND  GEORGE  17.  187 

be  compared  for  a  moment  with  that  great  orator  and  wit ; 
and  as  to  his  being  the  fountain  of  honour,  there  was  so 
much  dishonour  of  which  the  king  was  certainly  the 
fountain  too,  that  I  do  not  think  it  was  very  easy  for  two 
fountains  both  springing  from  such  a  person  to  have  flowed 
quite  unmingled.  George  justly  prided  himself  on  Sir 
Walter  Scott's  having  been  the  first  creation  of  his  reign, 
and  I  think  the  event  showed  that  the  poet  was  the  foun- 
tain of  much  more  honour  for  the  king,  than  the  king  was 
for  the  poet 

When  George  came  to  Edinburgh  in  1822,  it  was  Sir 
Walter  who  acted  virtually  as  the  master  of  the  cere- 
monies, and  to  whom  it  was  chiefly  due  that  the  visit  was 
so  successful.  It  was  then  that  George  clad  his  substantial 
person  for  the  first  time  in  the  Highland  costume — to  wit, 
in  the  Steuart  Tartans — and  was  so  much  annoyed  to  find 
himself  outvied  by  a  wealthy  alderman,  Sir  William 
Curtis,  who  had  gone  and  done  likewise,  and,  in  his  equally 
grand  Steuart  Tartans,  seemed  a  kind  of  parody  of 
the  king.  The  day  on  which  the  king  arrived,  Tuesday, 
14th  of  August,  1822,  was  also  the  day  on  which  Scott's 
most  intimate  friend,  William  Erskine,  then  Lord  Kin- 
nedder,  died.  Yet  Scott  went  on  board  the  royal  yacht, 
was  most  graciously  received  by  George,  had  his  health 
drunk  by  the  king  in  a  bottle  of  Highland  whiskey,  and 
with  a  proper  show  of  devoted  loyalty  entreated  to  be 
allowed  to  retain  the  glass  out  of  which  his  Majesty  had 
just  drunk  his  health.  The  request  was  graciously  acceded 
to,  but  let  it  be  pleaded  on  Scott's  behalf,  that  on  reaching 
home  and  finding  there  his  friend  Crabbe  the  poet,  he  sat 
down  on  the  royal  gift,  and  crushed  it  to  atoms.  One 
would  hope  that  he  was  really  thinking  more  even  of 
Crabbe,  and  much  more  of  Erskine,  than  of  the  royal 
K  7  10 


188  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHA*. 

favour  for  which  he  had  appeared,  and  doubtless  had 
really  believed  himself,  so  grateful.  Sir  Walter  retained 
his  regard  for  the  king,  such  as  it  was,  to  the  last,  and  even 
persuaded  himself  that  George's  death  would  be  a  great 
political  calamity  for  the  nation.  And  really  I  cannot  help 
thinking  that  Scott  believed  more  in  the  king,  than  he  did 
in  his  friend  George  Canning.  Assuredly,  greatly  as  he 
admired  Canning,  he  condemned  him  more  and  more  as 
Canning  grew  more  liberal,  and  sometimes  speaks  of  his 
veerings  in  that  direction  with  positive  asperity.  George, 
on  the  other  hand,  who  believed  more  in  numuer  one  than 
in  any  other  number,  hpwever  large,  became  much  more 
conservative  after  he  became  Eegent  than  he  was  before, 
and  as  he  grew  more  conservative  Scott  grew  more  con- 
servative likewise,  till  he  came  to  think  this  particular 
king  almost  a  pillar  of  the  Constitution.  I  suppose  we 
ought  to  explain  this  litfle  bit  of  fetish-worship  in  Scott 
much  as  we  should  the  quaint  practical  adhesion  to  duelling 
which  he  gave  as  an  old  man,  who  had  had  all  his  life 
much  more  to  do  with  the  pen  than  the  sword — that  is,  as 
an  evidence  of  the  tendency  of  an  improved  type  to  recur 
to  that  of  the  old  wild  stock  on  which  it  had  been  grafted. 
But  certainly  no  feudal  devotion  of  his  ancestors  to  their 
chief  was  ever  less  justified  by  moral  qualities  than  Scott's 
loyal  devotion  to  the  fountain  of  honour  as  embodied  in 
"  our  fat  friend."  The  whole  relation  to  George  was  a 
grotesque  thread  in  Scott's  life  ;  and  I  cannot  quite  forgive 
him  for  the  utterly  conventional  severity  with  which  he 
threw  over  his  first  patron,  the  Queen,  for  sins  which 
were  certainly  not  grosser,  if  they  were  not  much  less 
gross,  than  those  of  his  second  patron,  the  husband  who 
had  set  her  the  example  which  she  faithfully,  though  at  a 
distance,  followed. 


CHAPTEE  XIV. 

BCOTT  AS  A  POLITICIAN. 

SCOTT  usually  professed  great  ignorance  of  politics,  and  did 
what  he  could  to  hold  aloof  from  a  world  in  which  hia 
feelings  were  very  easily  heated,  while  his  knowledge  was 
apt  to  be  very  imperfect.  But  now  and  again,  and  notably 
towards  the  close  of  his  life,  he  got  himself  mixed  up  in 
politics,  and  I  need  hardly  say  that  it  was  always  on  the 
Tory,  and  generally  on  the  red-hot  Tory,  side.  His  first 
hasty  intervention  in  politics  was  the  song  I  have  just 
referred  to  on  Lord  Melville's  acquittal,  during  the  short 
Whig  administration  of  1806.  In  fact  Scott's  comparative 
abstinence  from  politics  was  due,  I  believe,  chiefly  to  the 
fact  that  during  almost  the  whole  of  his  literary  life, 
Tories  and  not  Whigs  were  in  power.  No  sooner  was  any 
reform  proposed,  any  abuse  threatened,  than  Scott's  eager 
Conservative  spirit  flashed  up.  Proposals  were  made  in 
1806  for  changes — and,  as  it  was  thought,  reforms — in  the 
Scotch  Courts  of  Law,  and  Scott  immediately  saw  something 
like  national  calamity  in  the  prospect.  The  mild  proposals 
in  question  were  discussed  at  a  meeting  of  the  Faculty  of 
Advocates,  when  Scott  made  a  speech  longer  than  he  had 
ever  before  delivered,  and  animated  by  a  "flow  and  energy 
of  eloquence "  for  which  those  who  were  accustomed  to 
hear  his  debating  speeches  were  quite  unprepared.  He 


140  SIE  WALTER  SOOTT.  [CHAP.  xm. 

walked  home  between  two  of  the  reformers,  Mr.  Jeffrey 
and  another,  when  his  companions  began  to  compliment 
him  on  his  eloquence,  and  to  speak  playfully  of  its 
subject.  But  Scott  was  in  no  mood  for  playfulness. 
"  No,  no,"  he  exclaimed,  "  'tis  no  laughing  matter  ;  little 
by  little,  whatever  your  wishes  may  be,  you  will  destroy 
and  undermine,  until  nothing  of  what  makes  Scotland 
Scotland  shall  remain  ! "  "  And  so  saying,"  adds  Mr.  Lock- 
hart,  "  he  turned  round  to  conceal  his  agitation,  but  not 
until  Mr.  Jeffrey  saw  tears  gushing  down  his  cheek, — rest- 
ing his  head,  until  he  recovered  himself,  on  the  wall  of  the 
Mound." 1  It  was  the  same  strong  feeling  for  old  Scotch 
institutions  which  broke  out  so  quaintly  in  the  midst  of  his 
own  worst  troubles  in  1826,  on  behalf  of  the  Scotch  bank- 
ing-system, when  he  so  eloquently  defended,  in  the  letters 
of  Malachi  Malagrowfher,  what  would  now  be  called 
Home-Rule  for  Scotland,  and  indeed  really  defeated  the 
attempt  of  his  friends  the  Tories,  who  were  the  innovators 
this  time,  to  encroach  on  those  sacred  institutions — the 
Scotch  one-pound  note,  and  the  private-note  circulation  of 
the  Scotch  banks.  But  when  I  speak  of  Scott  as  a  Home- 
Ruler,  I  should  add  that  had  not  Scotland  been  for  gene 
rations  governed  to  a  great  extent,  and,  as  he  thought 
successfully,  by  Home-Rule,  he  was  far  too  good  a  Conser- 
vative to  have  apologized  for  it  at  alL  The  basis  of  his 
Conservatism  was  always  the  danger  of  undermining  a 
system  which  had  answered  so  welL  In  the  concluding 
passages  of  the  letters  to  which  I  have  just  referred,  he 
contrasts  "  Theory,  a  scroll  in  her  hand,  full  of  deep  and 
mysterious  combinations  of  figures,  the  least  failure  in 
any  one  of  which  may  alter  the  result  entirelj,"  with 

*  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  ii  328. 


mw.]  SCOTT  AS  A  POLITICIAN.  141 

"»  practical  system  successful  for  upwards  of  a  century." 
His  vehement  and  unquailing  opposition  to  Eeform  in 
almost  the  very  last  year  of  his  life,  when  he  had  already 
suffered  more  than  one  stroke  of  paralysis,  was  grounded 
on  precisely  the  same  argument.  At  Jedburgh,  on  the 
21st  March,  1831,  he  appeared  in  the  midst  of  an  angry 
population  (who  hooted  and  jeered  at  him  till  he  turned 
round  fiercely  upon  them  with  the  defiance,  "I  regard  your 
gabble  no  more  than  the  geese  on  the  green,")  to  urge  the 
very  same  protest.  "  We  in  this  district,"  he  said,  "  are 
proud,  and  with  reason,  that  the  first  chain-bridge  was  the 
work  of  a  Scotchman.  It  still  hangs  where  he  erected 
it  a  pretty  long  time  ago.  The  French  heard  of  oui 
invention,  and  determined  to  introduce  it,  but  with 
great  improvements  and  embellishments.  A  friend  of 
my  own  saw  the  thing  tried.  It  was  on  the  Seine  at 
Marly.  The  French  chain-bridge  looked  lighter  and 
airier  than  the  prototype.  Every  Englishman  present 
was  disposed  to  confess  that  we  had  been  beaten  at  our 
own  trade.  But  by-and-by  the  gates  were  opened,  and 
the  multitude  were  to  pass  over.  It  began  to  swing 
rather  formidably  beneath  the  pressure  of  the  good  com- 
pany ;  and  by  the  time  the  architect,  who  led  the  proces- 
sion in  great  pomp  and  glory,  reached  the  middle,  the 
whole  gave  way,  and  he — worthy,  patriotic  artist — was 
the  first  that  got  a  ducking.  They  had  forgot  the  middle 
bolt,— or  rather  this  ingenious  person  had  conceived  that 
to  be  a  clumsy-looking  feature,  which  might  safely  be 
dispensed  with,  while  he  put  some  invisible  gimcrack  of 
his  own  to  supply  its  place."  l  It  is  strange  that  Six 
Walter  did  not  see  that  this  kind  of  criticism,  so  far  as  it 

>  Lockhart's  Life  <tf  Scott,  z.  47. 


143  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP, 

applied  at  all  to  such  an  experiment  as  the  Reform  Bill, 
was  even  more  in  point  as  a  rebuke  to  the  rashness  of  the 
Scotch  reformer  who  hung  the  first  successful  chain-bridge, 
than  to  the  rashness  of  the  French  reformer  of  reform  who 
devised  an  unsuccessful  variation  on  it.  The  audacity  of 
the  first  experiment  was  much  the  greater,  though  the  com- 
petence of  the  person  who  made  it  was  the  greater  also. 
And  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  political  structure  against  the 
supposed  insecurity  of  which  Sir  Walter  was  protesting, 
with  all  the  courage  of  that  dauntless  though  dying  nature, 
was  made  by  one  who  understood  his  work  at  least  as  well 
as  the  Scotch  architect.  The  tramp  of  the  many  multi- 
tudes who  have  passed  over  it  has  never  yet  made  it  to 
"  swing  dangerously,"  and  Lord  Russell  in  the  fulness  of 
his  age  was  but  yesterday  rejoicing  in  what  he  had  achieved, 
and  even  in  what  those  have  achieved  who  have  altered 
his  work  in  the  same  spirit  in  which  he  designed  it. 

But  though  Sir  "Walter  persuaded  himself  that  his 
Conservatism  was  all  founded  in  legitimate  distrust  of 
reckless  change,  there  is  evidence,  I  think,  that  at  times 
at  least  it  was  due  to  elements  less  noble.  The  least 
creditable  incident  in  the  story  of  his  political  life — which 
Mr.  Lockhart,  with  his  usual  candour,  did  not  conceal — 
was  the  bitterness  with  which  he  resented  a  most  natural 
and  reasonable  Parliamentary  opposition  to  an  appoint- 
ment which  he  had  secured  for  his  favourite  brother,  Tom. 
In  1810  Scott  appointed  his  brother  Tom,  who  had  failed 
as  a  Writer  to  the  Signet,  to  a  place  vacant  under  himself 
as  Clerk  of  Session.  He  had  not  given  him  the  best  place 
vacant,  because  he  thought  it  his  duty  to  appoint  an 
official  who  had  grown  grey  in  the  service,  but  he  gave 
Tom  Scott  this  man's  place,  which  was  worth  about  2507. 
a  year.  In  the  meantime  Tom  Scott's  affairs  did  not 


•IT.]  SCOTT  AS  A  POLITICIAN.  143 

render  it  convenient  for  him  to  be  come-at-able,  and  he 
absented  himself,  while  they  were  being  settled,  in  the 
Isle  of  Man.  Further,  the  Commission  on  the  Scotch 
system  of  judicature  almost  immediately  reported  that  his 
office  was  one  of  supererogation,  and  ought  to  be  abolished ; 
but,  to  soften  the  blow,  they  proposed  to  allow  him  a 
pension  of  130Z.  per  annum.  This  proposal  was  dis- 
cussed with  some  natural  jealousy  in  the  House  of  Lords. 
Lord  Lauderdale  thought  that  when  Tom  Scott  was 
appointed,  it  must  have  been  pretty  evident  that  the 
Commission  would  propose  to  abolish  his  office,  and  that 
the  appointment  therefore  should  not  have  been  made. 
"  Mr.  Thomas  Scott,"  he  said,  "  would  have  1307.  for  Ufa 
as  an  indemnity  for  an  office  the  duties  of  which  he  never 
had  performed,  while  those  clerks  who  had  laboured  for 
twenty  years  had  no  adequate  remuneration."  Lord  Hol- 
land supported  this  very  reasonable  and  moderate  view  of 
the  case ;  but  of  course  the  Ministry  carried  their  way, 
and  Tom  Scott  got  his  unearned  pension.  Nevertheless, 
Scott  was  furious  with  Lord  Holland.  Writing  soon  after 
to  the  happy  recipient  of  this  little  pension,  he  says, 
"  Lord  Holland  has  been  in  Edinburgh,  and  we  met  acci- 
dentally at  a  public  party.  He  made  up  to  me,  but  I 
remembered  his  part  in  your  affair,  and  cut  him  with  as 
little  remorse  as  an  old  pen."  Mr.  Lockhart  says,  on 
Lord  Jeffrey's  authority,  that  the  scene  was  a  very  painful 
one.  Lord  Jeffrey  himself  declared  that  it  was  the  only 
rudeness  of  which  he  ever  saw  Scott  guilty  in  the  course 
of  a  life-long  familiarity.  And  it  is  pleasant  to  know  that 
he  renewed  his  cordiality  with  Lord  Holland  in  later  years, 
though  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  ever  admitted  that  he 
had  been  in  the  wrong.  But  the  incident  shows  how 
very  doubtful  Sir  Walter  ought  to  have  felt  as  to  the  purity 


144  SIB  WALTEE  SCOTT.  [CHAF 

of  his  Conservatism.  It  is  quite  ceitain  that  the 
proposal  to  abolish  Tom  Scott's  office  without  compen- 
sation was  not  a  reckless  experiment  of  a  fundamental 
kind.  It  was  a  mere  attempt  at  diminishing  the  heavy 
burdens  laid  on  the  people  for  the  advantage  of  a  small 
portion  of  the  middle  class,  and  yet  Scott  resented  it  with 
as  much  display  of  selfish  passion — considering  his 
genuine  nobility  of  breeding — as  that  with  which  the 
rude  working  men  of  Jedburgh  afterwards"  resented  his 
gallant  protest  against  the  Reform  Bill,  and,  later  again, 
saluted  the  dauntless  old  man  with  the  dastardly  cry  of 
"  Burk  Sir  Walter  ! "  Judged  truly,  I  think  Sir  Walter's 
conduct  in  cutting  Lord  Holland  "  with  as  little  remorse 
as  an  old  pen,"  for  simply  doing  his  duty  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  was  quite  as  ignoble  in  him  as  the  bullying  and 
insolence  of  the  democratic  party  in  1831,  when  the  dying 
lion  made  his  last  dash  at  what  he  regarded  as  the  foes  of 
the  Constitution.  Doubtless  he  held  that  the  mob,  or, 
as  we  more  decorously  say,  the  residuum,  were  in  some 
sense  the  enemies  of  true  freedom.  "  I  cannot  read  in 
history,"  he  writes  once  to  Mr.  Laidlaw,  "  of  any  free 
State  which  has  been  brought  to  slavery  till  the  rascal 
and  uninstructed  populace  had  had  their  short  hour  of 
anarchical  government,  which  naturally  leads  to  the  stern 
repose  of  military  despotism."  But  he  does  not  seem 
ever  to  have  perceived  that  educated  men  identify  them- 
selves with  "  the  rascal  and  uninstructed  populace,"  when- 
ever they  indulge  on  behalf  of  the  selfish  interests 
of  their  own  class,  passions  such  as  he  had  indulged  in 
fighting  for  his  brother's  pension.  It  is  not  the  want  of 
instruction,  it  is  the  rascaldom,  L  e.  the  violent  esprit  de 
corps  of  a  selfish  class,  which  "  naturally  leads  "  to  violent 
remedies.  Such  rascaldom  exists  in  all  classes,  and  not 


XIT.]  SCOTT  AS  A  POLITICIAN.  145 

least  in  the  class  of  the  cultivated  and  refined.  Generous 
and  magnanimous  as  Scott  was,  he  was  evidently  by  no 
means  free  from  the  germs  of  it. 

One  more  illustration  of  Scott's  political  Conservatism, 
and  I  may  leave  his  political  life,  which  was  not  indeed  his 
strong  side,  though,  as  with  all  sides  of  Scott's  nature,  it 
had  an  energy  and  spirit  all  his  own.  On  the  subject  of 
Catholic  Emancipation  he  took  a  peculiar  view.  As  he 
justly  said,  he  hated  bigotry,  and  would  have  left  the 
Catholics  quite  alone,  but  for  the  great  claims  of  their 
creed  to  interfere  with  political  life.  And  even  so,  when 
the  penal  laws  were  once  abolished,  he  would  have 
abolished  also  the  representative  disabilities,  as  quite 
useless,  as  well  as  very  irritating  when  the  iron  system  of 
effective  repression  had  ceased.  But  he  disapproved  of  the 
abolition  of  the  political  parts  of  the  penal  laws.  He 
thought  they  would  have  stamped  out  Eoman  Catholicism ; 
and  whether  that  were  just  or  unjust,  he  thought  it  would 
have  been  a  great  national  service.  "  As  for  Catholic  > 
Emancipation,"  he  wrote  to  Southey  in  1807,  "  I  am  not, 
God  knows,  a  bigot  in  religious  matters,  nor  a  friend  to 
persecution ;  but  if  a  particular  set  of  religionists  are  ippo 
facto  connected  with  foreign  politics,  and  placed  under 
the  spiritual  direction  of  a  class  of  priests,  whose  unrivalled 
dexterity  and  activity  are  increased  by  the  rules  which 
detach  them  from  the  rest  of  the  world — I  humbly  think 
that  we  may  be  excused  from  entrusting  to  them  those 
places  in  the  State  where  the  influence  of  such  a  clergy, 
who  act  under  the  direction  of  a  passive  tool  of  our  worst 
foe,  is  likely  to  be  attended  with  the  most  fatal  conse- 
quences. If  a  gentleman  chooses  to  walk  about  with  a 
couple  of  pounds  of  gunpowder  in  his  pocket,  if  I  give 
him  the  shelter  of  my  roof,  I  may  at  least  be  permitted 
1* 


146  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAR 

to  exclude  him  from  the  seat  next  to  the  fire."  *  And  in 
relation  to  the  year  1825,  when  Scott  visited  Ireland,  Mr. 
Lockhart  writes,  "  He  on  all  occasions  expressed  manfully 
his  belief  that  the  best  thing  for  Ireland  would  have  been 
never  to  relax  the  strictly  political  enactments  of  the  penal 
laws,  however  harsh  these  might  appear.  Had  they  been 
kept  in  vigour  for  another  half-century,  it  was  his  convic- 
tion that  Popery  would  have  been  all  but  extinguished  in 
Ireland.  But  he  thought  that  after  admitting  Romanists 
to  the  elective  franchise,  it  was  a  vain  notion  that  they 
could  be  permanently  or  advantageously  deterred  from 
using  that  franchise  in  favour  of  those  of  their  own  per- 
suasion." 

In  his  diary  in  1829  he  puts  the  same  view  still  more 
strongly: — "I  cannot  get  myself  to  feel  at  all  anxious 
about  the  Catholic  question.  I  cannot  see  the  use  of 
fighting  about  the  platter,  when  you  have  let  them  snatch 
the  meat  off  it.  I  hold  Popery  to  be  such  a  mean  and 
degrading  superstition,  that  I  am  not  sure  I  could  have 
found  myself  liberal  enough  for  voting  the  repeal  of  the 
penal  laws  as  they  existed  before  1780.  They  must  and 
would,  in  course  of  time,  have  smothered  Popery ;  and  I 
confess  that  I  should  have  seen  the  old  lady  of  Babylon's 
mouth  stopped  with  pleasure.  But  now  that  you  have 
taken  the  plaster  off  her  mouth,  and  given  her  free  respi- 
ration, I  cannot  see  the  sense  of  keeping  up  the  irritation 
about  the  claim  to  sit  in  Parliament.  Unopposed,  the 
Catholic  superstition  may  sink  into  dust,  with  all  its 
absurd  ritual  and  solemnities.  Still  it  is  an  awful  risk. 
The  world  is  in  fact  as  silly  as  ever,  and  a  good  compe- 
tence of  nonsense  will  always  find  believers."  *  That  is 

1  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  iii.  34. 
3  Ibid.,  iz.  305. 


XI7.]  SCOTT  AS  A  POLITICIAN.  1*7 

the  view  of  a  strorg  and  rather  unscrupulous  politician 
— a  moss-trooper  in  politics  — which  Scott  certainly 
was.  He  was  thinking  evidently  very  little  of  justice, 
almost  entirely  of  the  most  effective  means  of  keeping 
the  Kingdom,  the  Kingdom  which  he  loved.  Had  he 
understood — what  none  of  the  politicians  of  that  day 
understood — the  strength  of  the  Church  of  Rome  as  the 
only  consistent  exponent  of  the  principle  of  Authority 
in  religion,  I  believe  his  opposition  to  Catholic  eman- 
cipation would  have  been  as  bitter  as  his  opposition 
to  Parliamentary  reform.  But  he  took  for  granted  that 
while  only  "  silly "  persons  believed  in  Rome,  and  only 
"infidels"  rejected  an  authoritative  creed  altogether,  it 
was  quite  easy  by  the  exercise  of  common  sense,  to  find 
the  true  compromise  between  reason  and  religious  humility. 
Had  Scott  lived  through  the  religious  controversies  of  our 
own  days,  it  seems  not  unlikely  that  with  his  vivid  imagi- 
nation, his  warm  Conservatism,  and  his  rather  inadequate 
critical  powers,  he  might  himself  have  become  a  Roman 
Catholic. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

BOOTT  IM   ADVEESITT. 

WITH  the  year  1825  came  a  financial  crisis,  and  Con 
•table  began  to  tremble  for  his  solvency.  From  the  date 
of  his  baronetcy  Sir  Walter  had  launched  out  into  a  con- 
siderable increase  of  expenditure.  He  got  plans  on  a 
rather  large  scale  in  1821  for  the  increase  of  Abbotsford, 
which  were  all  carried  out.  To  meet  his  expenses  in  this 
and  other  ways  he  received  Constable's  bills  for  "  four 
unnamed  works  of  fiction,"  of  which  he  had  not  written 
a  line,  but  which  came  to  exist  in  time,  and  were  called 
Peveril  of  the  Peak,  Quentin  Durward,  St.  Ronan's  Well, 
and  Redgauntlet.  Again,  in  the  very  year  before  the  crash, 
1825,  he  married  his  eldest  son,  the  heir  to  the  title,  to 
a  young  lady  who  was  herself  an  heiress,  Miss  Jobson 
of  Lochore,  when  Abbotsford  and  its  estates  were 
settled,  With  the  reserve  of  10,OOOZ.,  which  Sir  Walter 
took  power  to  charge  on  the  property  for  purposes  of 
business.  Immediately  afterwards  he  purchased  a  cap- 
taincy in  the  King's  Hussars  for  his  son,  which  cost  him 
3500Z.  Nor  were  the  obligations  he  incurred  on  his  own 
account,  or  that  of  his  family,  the  only  ones  by  which  he 
was  burdened.  He  was  always  incurring  expenses,  often 
heavy  expenses,  for  other  people.  Thus,  when  Mr.  Terry, 
the  actor,  became  joint  lessee  and  manager  of  the  Adelphi 


IT.]  SCOTT  IN  ADVERSITY.  149 

Theatre,  London,  Scott  became  his  surety  for  1250?.,  while 
James  Ballantyne  became  his  surety  for  500?.  more,  and 
both  these  sums  had  to  be  paid  by  Sir  Walter  after 
Terry's  failure  in  1828.  Such  obligations  as  these,  how- 
ever, would  have  been  nothing  when  compared  with  Sir 
Walter's  means,  had  all  his  bills  on  Constable  been  duly 
honoured,  and  had  not  the  printing  firm  of  Ballantyne 
and  Co.  been  so  deeply  involved  with  Constable's  house 
that  it  necessarily  became  insolvent  when  he  stopped. 
Taken  altogether,  I  believe  that  Sir  Walter  earned  during 
his  own  lifetime  at  least  140,000?.  by  his  literary  work 
alone,  probably  more;  while  even  on  his  land  and  building 
combined  he  did  not  apparently  spend  more  than  half 
that  sum.  Then  he  had  a  certain  income,  about  1000?.  a 
year,  from  his  own  and  Lady  Scott's  private  property,  as 
well  as  1300?.  a  year  as  Clerk  of  Session,  and  300?.  more 
as  Sheriff  of  Selkirk.  Thus  even  his  loss  of  the  price 
of  several  novels  by  Constable's  failure  would  not 
seriously  have  compromised  Scott's  position,  but  for  his 
share  in  the  printing-house  which  fell  with  Constable, 
and  the  obligations  of  which  amounted  to  117,000?. 

As  Scott  had  always  forestalled  his  income, — spend- 
ing the  purchase-money  of  his  poems  and  novels  before 
they  were  written, — such  a  failure  as  this,  at  the  age 
of  fifty-five,  when  all  the  freshness  of  his  youth  was 
gone  out  of  him,  when  he  saw  his  son's  prospects  bb'ghted 
as  well  as  his  own,  and  knew  perfectly  that  James 
Ballantyne,  unassisted  by  him,  could  never  hope  to  pay 
any  fraction  of  the  debt  worth  mentioning,  would  have 
been  paralysing,  had  he  not  been  a  man  of  iron  nerve, 
and  of  a  pride  and  courage  hardly  ever  equalled.  Domes- 
tic calamity,  too,  was  not  far  off.  For  two  years  he  had 
been  watching  the  failure  of  his  wife's  health  with  ra- 


150  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHA* 

creasing  anxiety,  and  as  calamities  seldon.  come  single, 
her  illness  took  a  most  serious  form  at  the  very  time  when 
the  blow  fell,  and  she  died  within  four  months  of  the 
failure.  .  Hay,  Scott  was  himself  unwell  at  the  critical 
moment,  and  was  taking  sedatives  which  discomposed  his 
brain.  Twelve  days  before  the  final  failure, — which  was 
announced  to  him  on  the  17th  January,  1826, — he  enters 
in  his  diary,  "  Much  alarmed.  I  had  walked  till  twelve 
with  Skene  and  Russell,  and  then  sat  down  to  my  work. 
To  my  horror  and  surprise  I  could  neither  write  nor  spell, 
but  put  down  one  word  for  another,  and  wrote  nonsense. 
I  was  much  overpowered  at  the  same  time  and  could  not 
conceive  the  reason.  I  fell  asleep,  however,  in  my  chair, 
and  slept  for  two  hours.  On  my  waking  my  head  was 
clearer,  and  I  began  to  recollect  that  last  night  I  had 
taken  the  anodyne  left  for  the  purpose  by  Clarkson,  and 
being  disturbed  in  the  course  of  the  night,  I  had  not 
slept  it  off."  In  fact  the  hyoscyamus  had,  combined 
with  his  anxieties,  given  him  a  slight  attack  of  what 
is  now  called  aphasia,  that  brain  disease  the  most 
striking  symptom  of  which  is  that  one  word  is  mis- 
taken for  another.  And  this  was  Scott's  preparation 
for  his  failure,  and  the  bold  resolve  which  followed 
it,  to  work  for  his  creditors  as  he  had  worked  for 
himself,  and  to  pay  off,  if  possible,  the  whole  11 7,00 OZ. 
by  his  own  literary  exertions. 

There  is  nothing  in  its  way  in  the  whole  of  English 
biography  more  impressive  than  the  stoical  extracts  from 
Scott's  diary  which  note  the  descent  of  this  blow.  Here 
is  the  anticipation  of  the  previous  day :  "  Edinburgh, 
January  16th. — Came  through  cold  roads  to  as  cold  news. 
Hurst  and  Robinson  have  suffered  a  bill  to  come  back  upon 
Constable,  which,  I  suppose,  infers  the  ruin  of  both  house* 


7.]  SOOTT  IN  ADVBR8ITY.  151 

We  shall  soon  see.  Dined  with  the  Skenes."  And  hew 
is  the  record  itself:  "January  17th. — James  Ballantyne 
this  morning,  good  honest  fellow,  with  a  visage  as  black 
as  the  crook.  He  hopes  no  salvation ;  has,  indeed,  taken 
measures  to  stop.  It  is  hard,  after  having  fought  such  a 
battle.  I  have  apologized  for  not  attending  the  Koyal 
Society  Club,  who  have  a  gaudeamus  on  this  day,  and 
seemed  to  count  much  on  my  being  the  prseses.  My  old 
acquaintance  Miss  Elizabeth  Clerk,  sister  of  "Willie,  died 
suddenly.  I  cannot  choose  but  wish  it  had  been  Sir 
W.  S.,  and  yet  the  feeling  is  unmanly.  I  have  Anne, 
my  wife,  and  Charles  to  look  after.  I  felt  rather  sneak- 
ing as  I  came  home  from  the  Parliament-house — felt  as  if 
I  were  liable  monstrari  digito  in  no  veiy  pleasant  way. 
But  this  must  be  borne  cum  cceteris  ;  and,  thank  God, 
however  uncomfortable,  I  do  not  feel  despondent."1  On 
the  following  day,  the  18th  January,  the  day  after  the 
blow,  he  records  a  bad  night,  a  wish  that  the  next  two 
days  were  over,  but  that  "the  worst  is  over,"  and  on 
the  same  day  he  set  about  making  notes  for  the  magnum 
opus,  as  he  called  it — the  complete  edition  of  all  the 
novels,  with  a  new  introduction  and  notes.  On  the  19th 
January,  two  days  after  the  failure,  he  calmly  resumed  the 
composition  of  Woodstock — the  novel  on  which  he  was 
then  engaged — and  completed,  he  says,  "about  twenty 
printed  pages  of  it ;"  to  which  he  adds  that  he  had  "  a 
painful  scene  after  dinner  and  another  after  supper, 
endeavouring  to  convince  these  poor  creatures  "  [his  wife 
and  daughter]  "  that  they  must  not  look  for  miracles,  but 
consider  the  misfortune  as  certain,  and  only  to  be  lessened 
by  patience  and  labour."  On  the  21st  January,  after  a 

•  l«ockhart'fj  TAfe  of  Scott,  viii  197- 


1K2  S1E  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

number  of  business  details,  he  quotes  from  Job,  "  Naked 
we  entered  the  world  and  naked  we  leave  it ;  blessed  be 
the  name  of  the  Lord."  On  the  22nd  he  says,  "I  feel 
neither  dishonoured  nor  broken  down  by  the  bad,  now 
truly  bad,  news  I  have  received.  I  have  walked  my  last 
in  the  domains  I  have  planted^-sat  the  last  time  in  the 
halls  I  have  built.  But  death  would  have  taken  them 
from  me,  if  misfortune  had  spared  them.  My  poor  people 
whom  I  loved  so  well !  There  is  just  another  die  to  turn 
up  against  me  in  this  run  of  ill-luck,  i.  e.  if  I  should  break 
my  magic  wand  in  the  fall  from  this  elephant,  and  lose 
my  popularity  with  my  fortune.  Then  Woodstock  and 
Boney"  [his  life  of  Napoleon]  "may  both  go  to  the 
paper-maker,  and  I  may  take  to  smoking  cigars  and 
drinking  grog,  or  turn  devotee  and  intoxicate  the  brain 
another  way."1  He  adds  that  when  he  sets  to  work 
doggedly,  he  is  exactly  the  same  man  he  ever  was,  "  neither 
low-spirited  nor  distrait"  nay,  that  adversity  is  to  him 
"  a  tonic  and  bracer." 

The  heaviest  blow  was,  I  think,  the  blow  to  bis  pride. 
Very  early  he  begins  to  note  painfully  the  different  way  in 
which  different  friends  greet  him,  to  remark  that  some 
smile  as  if  to  say,  "  think  nothing  about  it,  my  lad,  it  is 
quite  out  of  our  thoughts ;"  that  others  adopt  an  affected 
gravity,  "  such  as  one  sees  and  despises  at  a  funeral,"  and 
the  best-bred  "just  shook  hands  and  went  on."  He  writes 
to  Mr.  Morritt  with  a  proud  indifference,  clearly  to  some 
extent  simulated  : — "  My  womenkind  will  be  the  greater 
sufferers,  yet  even  they  look  cheerily  forward ;  and,  for 
myself,  the  blowing  off  of  my  hat  on  a  stormy  day  has 
given  me  more  uneasiness." '  To  Lady  Davy  he  writes 

l  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  viii.  203-4. 
*  Tbii,  viii.  235. 


xtr.]  SCOTT  IN  ADVERSITY  188 

truly  enough : — "  I  beg  my  humblest  compliments  to  Sir 
Humphrey,  and  tell  him,  HI  Luck,  that  direful  chemist, 
never  put  into  his  crucible  a  more  indissoluble  piece  of 
atuff  than  your  affectionate  cousin  and  sincere  well- 
wisher,  Walter  Scott." '  When  his  Letters  of  Malachi 
Malagrowther  came  out  he  writes: — "  I  am  glad  of  this 
bruikie,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned ;  people  will  not  dare 
talk  of  me  as  an  object  of  pity — no  more  '  poor-manning.' 
Who  asks  how  many  punds  Scots  the  old  champion  had 
In  his  pocket  when 

'  He  set  a  bngle  to  his  month, 

And  blew  so  lond  and  shrill, 
The  trees  in  greenwood  shook  thereat, 
Sae  lond  rang  every  hill/ 

This  sounds  conceited  enough,  yet  is  not  far  from  truth."  • 
His  dread  of  pity  is  just  the  same  when  his  wife  dies : — 
"  Will  it  be  better,"  he  writes,  "  when  left  to  my  own 
feelings,  I  see  the  whole  world  pipe  and  dance  around 
me  ?  I  think  it  will.  Their  sympathy  intrudes  on  my 
present  affliction."  Again,  on  returning  for  the  first  time 
from  Edinburgh  to  Abbotsford  after  Lady  Scott's  funeral: — 
"  I  again  took  possession  of  the  family  bedroom  and  my 
widowed  couch.  This  was  a  sore  trial,  but  it  was  neces- 
sary not  to  blink  such  a  resolution.  Indeed  I  do  not  like 
to  have  it  thought  that  there  is  any  way  in  which  I  can 
be  beaten."  And  again: — "I  have  a  secret  pride — I 
fancy  it  will  be  so  most  truly  termed — which  impels  me  to 
mix  with  my  distresses  strange  snatches  of  mirth,  '  which 
have  no  mirth  in 'them.'  "* 


*  Lookhart's  Life  of  Scott,  riii.  238. 

•  viS.  277.  •  riii.,  847,  371,  881. 

L 


154  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP 

But  though  pride  was  part  of  Scott's  strength,  pride 
alone  never  enabled  any  man  to  struggle  so  vigorously  and 
so  unremittingly  as  he  did  to  meet  the  obligations  he  had 
incurred.  When  he  was  in  Ireland  in  the  previous  year, 
a  poor  woman  who  had  offered  to  sell  him  gooseberries, 
but  whose  offer  had  not  been  accepted,  remarked,  on 
seeing  his  daughter  give  some  pence  to  a  beggar,  that  they 
might  as  well  give  her  an  alms  too,  as  she  was  "  an  old 
straggler."  Sir  Walter  was  struck  with  the  expression, 
and  said  that  it  deserved  to  become  classical,  as  a  name 
for  those  who  t<>ke  arms  against  a  sea  of  troubles,  in- 
stead of  yielding  to  the  waves.  It  was  certainly  a  name 
the  full  meaning  of  which  he  himself  deserved.  His 
house  in  Edinburgh  was  sold,  and  he  had  to  go  into 
a  certain  Mrs.  Brown's  lodgings,  when  he  was  dis- 
charging his  duties  as  Clerk  of  Session.  His  wife  was 
dead.  His  estate  was  conveyed  to  trustees  for  the  benefit 
of  his  creditors  till  such  time  as  he  should  pay  off 
Ballantyne  and  Go's,  debt,  which  of  course  in  his  lifetime 
he  never  did.  Yet  between  January,  1826,  and  January, 
1828,  he  earned  for  his  creditors  very  nearly  40,000/. 
Woodstock  sold  for  8228J.,  "a  matchless  sale,"  as  Sir 
Walter  remarked,  "for  less  than  three  months'  work." 
The  first  two  editions  of  Tlie  Life  of  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte, on  which  Mr.  Lockhart  says  that  Scott  had  spent 
the  unremitting  labour  of  about  two  years — labour  in- 
volving a  far  greater  strain  on  eyes  and  brain  than  his 
imaginative  work  ever  caused  him — sold  for  18,OOOJ. 
Had  Sir  Walter's  health  lasted,  he  would  have  redeemed 
his  obligations  on  behalf  of  Ballantyne  and  Co.  within 
eight  or  nine  years  at  most  from  the  time  of  his  failure. 
But  what  is  more  remarkable  still,  is  that  after  his  health 
failed  he  struggled  on  with  little  more  than  half  a  brain, 


TT.]  SCOTT  IN  ADVERSITY.  IBS 

but  a  whole  will,  to  work  while  it  was  yet  day,  though 
the  evening  was  dropping  fast.  Count  Robert  of  Parit 
and  Castle  Dangerous  were  really  the  compositions  of  a 
paralytic  patient. 

It  was  in  September,  1830,  that  the  first  of  these 
tales  was  begun.  As  early  as  the  15th  February  of  that 
year  he  had  had  his  first  true  paralytic  seizure.  He  had 
been  discharging  his  duties  as  clerk  of  session  as  usual, 
and  received  in  the  afternoon  a  visit  from  a  lady  friend  of 
his,  Miss  Young,  who  was  submitting  to  him  some  manu- 
script memoirs  of  her  father,  when  the  stroke  came.  It 
was  but  slight.  He  struggled  against  it  with  his  usual 
iron  power  of  will,  and  actually  managed  to  stagger  out  of 
the  room  where  the  lady  was  sitting  with  him,  into  the 
drawing-room  where  his  daughter  was,  but  there  he  fell 
his  full  length  on  the  floor.  He  was  cupped,  and  fully 
recovered  his  speech  during  the  course  of  the  day,  but 
Mr.  Lockhart  thinks  that  never,  after  this  attack,  did  his 
style  recover  its  full  lucidity  and  terseness.  A  cloudiness 
in  words  and  a  cloudiness  of  arrangement  began  to  be 
visible.  In  the  course  of  the  year  he  retired  from  his 
duties  of  clerk  of  session,  and  his  publishers  hoped  that, 
by  engaging  him  on  the  new  and  complete  edition  of  his 
works,  they  might  detach  him  from  the  attempt  at  imagi- 
native creation  for  which  he  was  now  so  much  less  fit. 
But  Sir  "Walter's  will  survived  his  judgment.  When, 
in  the  previous  year,  Ballantyne  had  been  disabled  from 
attending  to  business  by  his  wife's  illness  (which  ended  in 
her  death),  Scott  had  written  in  his  diary,  "It  is  his 
(Ballantyne's)  nature  to  indulge  apprehensions  of  the 
worst  which  incapacitate  him  for  labour.  I  cannot  help 
regarding  this  amiable  weakness  of  the  mind  with  some- 
thing too  nearly  allied  to  contempt,"  and  assuredly  he 


156  SIR  WALTER  SCOff.  £CHAA 

was  guilty  of  no  such  weakness  himself.  Not  only  did 
he  row  much  harder  against  the  stream  of  fortune  than  he 
had  ever  rowed  with  it,  but,  what  required  still  more 
resolution,  he  fought  on  against  the  growing  conviction 
that  his  imagination  would  not  kindle,  as  it  used  to  do, 
to  its  old  heat. 

When  he  dictated  to  Laidlaw, — for  at  this  time  he  could 
hardly  write  himself  for  rheumatism  in  the  hand, — he 
would  frequently  pause  and  look  round  him,  like  a  man 
"  mocked  with  shadows."  Then  he  bestirred  himself  with 
a  great  effort,  rallied  his  force,  and  the  style  again  flowed 
clear  and  bright,  but  not  for  long.  The  clouds  would 
gather  again,  and  the  mental  blank  recur.  This  soon 
became  visible  to  his  publishers,  who  wrote  discouragingly 
of  the  new  novel — to  Scott's  own  great  distress  and  irrita- 
tion. The  oddest  feature  in  the  matter  was  that  his 
letters  to  them  were  full  of  the  old  terseness,  and  force, 
and  caustic  turns.  On  business  he  was  as  clear  and  keen 
as  in  his  best  days.  It  was  only  at  his  highest  task,  the 
task  of  creative  work,  that  his  cunning  began  to  fail  him. 
Here,  for  instance,  are  a  few  sentences  written  to  Cadell, 
his  publisher,  touching  this  very  point — the  discourage- 
ment which  James  Ballantyne  had  been  pouring  on  the 
new  novel.  Ballantyne,  he  says,  finds  fault  with  the 
subject,  when  what  he  really  should  have  found  fault  with 
was  the  failing  power  of  the  author : — "  James  is,  with 
many  other  kindly  critics,  perhaps  in  the  predicament  of 
an  honest  drunkard,  when  crop-sick  the  next  morning, 
who  does  not  ascribe  the  malady  to  the  wine  he  has 
drunk,  but  to  having  tasted  some  particular  dish  at  dinner 

which  disagreed  with  his  stomach I  have  lost,  it 

is  plain,  the  power  of  interesting  the  country,  and  ought, 
in  justice  to  all  parties,  to  retire  while  I  have  some  credit. 


XT.]  SCOTT  IN  ADVERSITY.  W 

But  this  is  an  important  step,  and  I  will  not  be  obstinate 

about  it  if  it  be  necessary Frankly,  I  cannot  think 

of  flinging  aside  the  half-finished  volume,  as  if  it  were  a 

corked  bottle  of  wine I  may,  perhaps,  take  a  trip 

to  the  Continent  for  a  year  or  two,  if  I  find  Othello's 
occupation  gone,  or  rather  Othello's  reputation"1  And 
again,  in  a  very  able  letter  written  on  the  12th  of  De« 
cember,  1830,  to  Cadell,  he  takes  a  view  of  the  situation 
with  as  much  calmness  and  imperturbability  as  if  he  were 
an  outside  spectator.  "  There  were  many  circumstances  in 
the  matter  which  you  and  J.  B.  (James  Ballantyne)  could 
not  be  aware  of,  and  which,  if  you  were  aware  of,  might 
have  influenced  your  judgment,  which  had,  and  yet  have, 
a  most  powerful  effect  upon  mine.  The  deaths  of  both 
my  father  and  mother  have  been  preceded  by  a  paralytic 
shock.  My  father  survived  it  for  nearly  two  years — a 
melancholy  respite,  and  not  to  be  desired.  I  was 
alarmed  with  Miss  Young's  morning  visit,  when,  as  you 
know,  I  lost  my  speech.  The  medical  people  said  it 
was  from  the  stomach,  which  might  be,  but  while 
there  is  a  doubt  upon  a  point  so  alarming,  you  will  not 
wonder  that  the  subject,  or  to  use  Hare's  lingo,  the  shot, 
should  be  a  little  anxious."  He  relates  how  he  had 
followed  all  the  strict  medical  regime  prescribed  to  him 
with  scrupulous  regularity,  and  then  begun  his  work 
again  with  as  much  attention  as  he  could.  "  And  having 
taken  pains  with  my  story,  I  find  it  is  not  relished, 
nor  indeed  tolerated,  by  those  who  have  no  interest  in 
condemning  it,  but  a  strong  interest  in  putting  even  a 
face  "  (?  force)  "  upon  their  consciences.  Was  not  this, 
in  the  circumstances,  a  damper  to  an  invalid  already 

*  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  x.  11, 1». 


156  BIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [CHAP 

afraid  that  the  sharp  edge  might  be  taken  off  his  in- 
tellect, though  he  was  not  himself  sensible  of  that?"  In 
fact,  no  more  masterly  discussion  of  the  question  whether 
his  mind  were  failing  or  not,  and  what  he  ought  to  do  in 
the  interval  of  doubt,  can  be  conceived,  than  these  letters 
give  us.  At  this  time  the  debt  of  Ballantyne  and  Co.  had 
been  reduced  by  repeated  dividends — all  the  fruits  of 
Scott's  literary  work — more  than  one  half.  On  the  17th 
of  December,  1830,  the  liabilities  stood  at  64,OOOZ., 
having  been  reduced  63,000?.  within  five  years.  And  Sir 
Walter,  encouraged  by  this  great  rebult  of  his  labour, 
resumed  the  suspended  novel. 

But  with  the  beginning  of  1831  came  new  alarms.  On 
January  5th  Sir  "Walter  enters  in  his  diary, — "Very 
indifferent,  with  more  awkward  feelings  than  I  can  well 
bear  up  against.  My  voice  sunk  and  my  head  strangely 
confused."  Still  he  struggled  on.  On  the  31st  January 
he  went  alone  to  Edinburgh  to  sign  his  will,  and  stayed 
at  his  bookseller's  (Cadell's)  house  in  Athol  Crescent. 
A  great  snow-storm  set  in  which  kept  him  in  Edin- 
burgh and  in  Mr.  Cadell's  house  till  the  9th  February. 
One  day  while  the  snow  was  still  falling  heavily,  Bal- 
lantyne reminded  him  that  a  motto  was  wanting  for 
one  of  the  chapters  of  Count  Robert  of  Paris.  He 
went  to  the  window,  looked  out  for  a  moment,  and  then 
wrote, — 

"  The  storm  increases ;  'tis  no  snnny  shower, 
Poster'd  in  the  moist  breast  cf  March  or  April, 
Or  such  as  parched  summer  cools  his  lips  with. 
Heaven's  windows  are  flung  wide ;  the  inmost  deeps 
Call,  in  hoarse  greeting,  one  upon  another ; 
On  comes  the  flood,  in  all  its  foaming  horrors, 
And  where's  the  dike  shall  stop  it  ? 

The  Deluge:  a  Poem.1' 


xr.]  SCOTT  IN  ADVERSITY.  168 

Clearly  this  failing  imagination  of  Sir  Walter's  was  still 
a  great  deal  more  vivid  than  that  of  most  men,  with 
brains  as  sound  as  it  ever  pleased  Providence  to  make 
them.  But  his  troubles  were  not  yet  even  numbered. 
The  "storm  increased,"  and  it  was,  as  he  said,  "no  sunny 
shower."  His  lame  leg  became  so  painful  that  he  had  to 
get  a  mechanical  apparatus  to  relieve  him  of  some  of  the 
burden  of  supporting  it.  Then,  on  the  21st  March,  he 
was  hissed  at  Jedburgh,  as  I  have  before  said,  for  his 
vehement  opposition  to  Reform.  In  April  he  had  another 
stroke  of  paralysis  which  he  now  himself  recognized  as 
one.  Still  he  struggled  on  at  his  novel  Under  the  date 
of  May  6,  7,  8,  he  makes  this  entry  in  his  diary  : — "  Here 
is  a  precious  job.  I  have  a  formal  remonstrance  from  those 
critical  people,  Ballantyne  and  Cadell,  against  the  last 
volume  of  Count  Robert,  which  is  within  a  sheet  of  being 
finished.  I  suspect  their  opinion  will  be  found  to  coincide 
with  that  of  the  public ;  at  least  it  is  not  very  different 
from  my  own.  The  blow  is  a  stunning  one,  I  suppose, 
for  I  scarcely  feel  it.  It  is  singular,  but  it  comes  with 
as  little  surprise  as  if  I  had  a  remedy  ready ;  yet  God 
knows  I  am  at  sea  in  the  dark,  and  the  vessel  leaky,  I 
think,  into  the  bargain.  I  cannot  conceive  that  I  have 
tied  a  knot  with  my  tongue  which  my  teeth  cannot  untie. 
We  shall  see.  I  have  suffered  terribly,  that  is  the  truth, 
rather  in  body  than  mind,  and  I  often  wish  I  could  lie 
down  and  sleep  without  waking.  But  I  will  fight  it  out 
if  I  can." l  The  medical  men  with  one  accord  tried  to 
make  him  give  up  his  novel-writing.  But  he  smiled  and 
put  them  by.  He  took  up  Count  Robert  of  Paris  again, 
and  tried  to  recast  it.  On  the  18th  May  he  insisted  on 

1  lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  x.  66-4 


WO  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT.  [OHAI 

attending  tho  election  for  Koxburghshire,  to  be  held  at 
Jedburgh,  and  in  spite  of  the  unmannerly  reception  he 
had  met  with  in  March,  no  dissuasion  would  keep  him  at 
home.  He  was  saluted  in  the  town  with  groans  and 
blasphemies,  and  Sir  Walter  had  to  escape  from  Jedburgh 
by  a  back  way  to  avoid  personal  violence.  The  cries 
of  "  Burk  Sir  Walter,"  with  which  he  was  saluted  on  this 
occasion,  haunted  him  throughout  his  illness  and  on  his 
dying  bed.  At  the  Selkirk  election  it  was  Sir  Walter's 
duty  as  Sheriff  to  preside,  and  his  family  therefore  made 
no  attempt  to  dissuade  him  from  his  attendance.  There 
he  was  so  well  known  and  loved,  that  in  spite  of  his  Tory 
views,  he  was  not  insulted,  and  the  only  man  who  made 
any  attempt  to  hustle  the  Tory  electors,  was  seized  by  Sir 
Walter  with  his  own  hand,  as  he  got  out  of  his  carriage, 
and  committed  to  prison  without  resistance  till  the  election 
day  was  over. 

A  seton  which  had  been  ordered  for  his  head,  gave  him 
some  relief,  and  of  course  the  first  result  was  that  he 
turned  immediately  to  his  novel-writing  again,  and  began 
Castle  Dangerous  in  July,  1831, — the  last  July  but  one 
which  he  was  to  see  at  alL  He  even  made  a  little 
journey  in  company  with  Mr.  Lockhart,  in  order  to  see 
the  scene  of  the  story  he  wished  to  tell,  and  on  his  return 
set  to  work  with  all  his  old  vigour  to  finish  his  tale, 
and  put  the  concluding  touches  to  Count  Robert  of  Paris. 
But  his  temper  was  no  longer  what  it  had  been.  He 
quarrelled  with  Ballantyne,  partly  for  his  depreciatory 
criticism  of  Count  Robert  of  Paris,  partly  for  his  growing 
tendency  to  a  mystic  and  strait-laced  sort  of  dissent  and 
his  increasing  Liberalism.  Even  Mr.  Laidlaw  and  Scott'a 
children  had  much  to  bear.  But  he  struggled  on  even  to 
the  end,  and  did  not  consent  to  try  the  experiment  of  a 


rv.]  SCOTT  IN  ADVERSITY.  161 

voyage  and  visit  to  Italy  till  his  immediate  work  was  done. 
Well  might  Lord  Chief  Baron  Shepherd  apply  to  Scott 
Cicero's  description  of  some  contemporary  of  his  own,  who 
"  had  borne  adversity  wisely,  who  had  not  been  broken  by 
fortune,  and  who,  amidst  the  buffets  of  fate,  had  main- 
tained his  dignity."  There  was  in  Sir  Walter,  I  think, 
at  least  as  much  of  the  Stoic  as  the  Christian.  But 
Stoic  or  Christian,  he  was  a  hero  of  the  old,  indomitable 
type.  Even  the  last  fragments  of  his  imaginative  power 
were  all  turned  to  account  by  that  unconquerable  will, 
amidst  the  discouragement  of  friends,  and  the  still  more 
disheartening  doubts  of  his  own  mind.  Like  the  head- 
land stemming  a  rough  sea,  he  was  gradually  worn  away, 
but  never  crushed. 
S 


CHAPTER  XVL 

THE   LAST   YEAR. 

IN  the  month  of  September,  1831,  tie  disease  of  the 
brain  which  had  long  been  in  existence  must  have  made 
a  considerable  step  in  advance.  For  the  first  time  the 
illusion  seemed  to  possess  Sir  Walter  that  he  had  paid 
off  all  the  debt  for  which  he  was  liable,  and  that  he  was 
once  more  free  to  give  as  his  generosity  prompted.  Scott 
sent  Mr.  Lockhart  50Z.  to  save  his  grandchildren  some 
slight  inconvenience,  and  told  another  of  his  corre- 
spondents that  he  had  "  put  his  decayed  fortune  into  aa 
good  a  condition  as  he  could  desire."  It  was  well,  there- 
fore, that  he  had  at  last  consented  to  try  the  effect  of 
travel  on  his  health, — not  that  he  could  hope  to  arrest 
by  it  such  a  disease  as  his,  but  that  it  diverted  him  from 
the  most  painful  of  all  efforts,  that  of  trying  anew  the 
spell  which  had  at  last  failed  him,  and  perceiving  in  the 
disappointed  eyes  of  his  old  admirers  that  the  magic  of 
his  imagination  was  a  thing  of  the  past.  The  last  day 
of  real  enjoyment  at  Abbotsford — for  when  Sir  Walter 
returned  to  it  to  die,  it  was  but  to  catch  once  more  the 
outlines  of  its  walls,  the  rustle  of  its  woods,  and  the 
gleam  of  its  waters,  through  senses  already  darkened  to 
all  less  familiar  and  less  fascinating  visions — was  the 
22nd  September,  1831.  On  the  21st,  Wordsworth  had 


in.}  THE  LAST  YEAE.  163 

come  to  bid  his  old  Mend  adieu,  and  on  the  22nd — the  last 
day  at  home — they  spent  the  morning  together  in  a  visit 
to  Newark.  It  was  a  day  to  deepen  alike  in  Scott  and 
in  Wordsworth  whatever  of  sympathy  either  of  them  had 
with  the  very  different  genius  of  the  other,  and  that  it 
had  this  result  in  Wordsworth's  case,  we  know  from  the 
very  beautiful  poem, — "  Yarrow  Eevisited," — and  the  son- 
net which  the  occasion  also  produced.  And  even  Scott, 
who  was  so  little  of  a  Wordsworthian,  who  enjoyed 
Johnson's  stately  but  formal  verse,  and  Crabbe's  vivid 
Dutch  painting,  more  than  he  enjoyed  the  poetry  of  the 
transcendental  school,  must  have  recurred  that  day  with 
more  than  usual  emotion  to  his  favourite  Wordsworthian 
poem.  Soon  after  his  wife's  death,  he  had  remarked  in 
his  diary  how  finely  "  the  effect  of  grief  upon  persons  who 
like  myself  are  highly  susceptible  of  humour  "  had  been 
"  touched  by  Wordsworth  in  the  character  of  the  merry 
village  teacher,  Matthew,  whom  Jeffrey  profanely  calls 
a  half-crazy,  sentimental  person." l  And  long  before  this 
time,  during  the  brightest  period  of  his  life,  Scott  had 
made  the  old  Antiquary  of  his  novel  quote  the  same 
poem  of  Wordsworth's,  in  a  passage  where  the  period  of 
life  at  which  he  had  now  arrived  is  anticipated  with 
singular  pathos  and  force.  "  It  is  at  such  moments  as 
these,"  says  Mr.  Oldbuck,  "that  we  feel  the  changes  of 
tima  The  same  objects  are  before  us — those  inanimate 
things  which  we  have  gazed  on  in  wayward  infancy  and 
impetuous  youth,  in  anxious  and  scheming  manhood — they 
are  permanent  and  the  same ;  but  when  we  look  upon 
them  in  cold,  unfeeling  old  age,  can  we,  changed  in  oui 
temper,  our  pursuits,  our  feelings, — changed  in  our  form, 
oui  limbs,  and  our  strength, — can  we  be  ourselves  called  the 

»  Lockhart's  Lift  of  Scott,  ix.  63. 


164  STE  WALTEE  SCOTT.  [CHA* 

same  1  or  do  we  not  rather  look  back  with  a  sort  vf  wonder 
upon  our  former  selves  as  beings  separate  and  distinct  from 
what  we  now  are  ?  The  philosopher  who  appealed  from 
Philip  inflamed  with  wine  to  Philip  in  his  hours  of 
sobriety,  did  not  claim  a  judge  so  different  as  if  he  had 
appealed  from  Philip  in  his  youth  to  Philip  in  hia  old 
age.  I  cannot  but  be  touched  with  the  feeling  so  beauti- 
fully expressed  in  a  poem  which  I  have  heard  repeated: — 

'  My  eyes  are  dim  with  childish  tears, 

My  heart  is  idly  stirr'd, 
For  the  same  sound  is  in  my  ears 

Which  in  those  days  I  heard. 
Thus  fares  it  still  in  our  decay, 

And  yet  the  wiser  mind 
Mourns  less  for  what  age  takes  away 

Than  what  it  leaves  behind.'  "  ' 

Sir  Walter's  memory,  which,  in  spite  of  the  slight 
failure  of  brain  and  the  mild  illusions  to  which,  on  the 
subject  of  his  own  prospects,  he  was  now  liable,  had  as  yet 
been  little  impaired — indeed,  he  could  still  quote  whole 
pages  from  all  his  favourite  authors — must  have  recurred 
to  those  favourite  "Wordsworthian  lines  of  his  with  sin- 
gular force,  as,  with  Wordsworth  for  his  companion,  he 
gazed  on  the  refuge  of  the  last  Minstrel  of  his  imagination 
for  the  last  time,  and  felt  in  himself  how  much  of  joy  in 
the  sight,  age  had  taken  away,  and  how  much,  too,  of 
the  habit  of  expecting  it,  it  had  unfortunately  left  behind. 
Whether  Sir  Walter  recalled  this  poem  of  Wordsworth's  on 
this  occasion  or  not — and  if  he  recalled  it,  his  delight  in 
giving  pleasure  would  assuredly  have  led  him  to  let  Word* 
worth  know  that  he  recalled  it — the  mood  it  paints  was 
unquestionably  that  in  which  his  last  day  at  Abbotsford 

1  Tht  AiMquary,  chap.  z. 


XttJ  THE  LAST  YBAB.  lbt> 

was  passed.  In  the  evening,  referring  to  the  journey 
which  was  to  begin  the  next  day,  he  remarked  that 
Fielding  and  Smollett  had  been  driven  abroad  by  declin- 
ing health,  and  that  they  had  never  returned;  while 
Wordsworth — willing  perhaps  to  bring  out  a  brighter 
feature  in  the  present  picture — regretted  that  the  last  daya 
of  those  two  great  novelists  had  not  been  surrounded  by 
due  marks  of  respect.  With  Sir  Walter,  as  he  well  knew, 
it  was  different.  The  Liberal  Government  that  he  had  so 
bitterly  opposed  were  pressing  on  him  signs  of  the  honour 
in  which  he  was  held,  and  a  ship  of  his  Majesty's  navy 
had  been  placed  at  his  disposal  to  take  him  to  the 
Mediterranean.  And  Wordsworth  himself  added  his 
own  more  durable  token  of  reverence.  As  long  as  English 
poetry  lives,  Englishmen  will  know  something  of  that 
last  day  of  the  last  Minstrel  at  Kewark : — 

"  Grave  thoughts  ruled  wide  on  that  sweet  day, 

Their  dignity  installing 
In  gentle  bosoms,  while  sere  leaves 

Were  on  the  bough  or  falling  ; 
Bat  breezes  play'd,  and  sunshine  gleam'd 

The  forest  to  embolden, 
Eedden'd  the  fiery  hues,  and  shot 

Transparence  through  the  golden. 

"  For  busy  thoughts  the  stream  flowed  on 

In  foamy  agitation ; 
And  slept  in  many  a  crystal  pool 

For  quiet  contemplation : 
No  public  and  no  private  care 

The  free-born  mind  enthralling, 
We  made  a  day  of  happy  hours, 

Our  happy  days  recalling. 
»  *  *  * 

111  And  if,  as  Yarrow  through  the  woods 

And  down  the  meadow  ranging, 
Did  meet  us  with  unaltered  face, 
Though  we  were  changed  and  changing; 


L60  SIB  WALTEB  SCOTT.  [CHAR 

If  then  some  natural  shadow  spread 

Our  inward  prospect  over, 
The  soul's  deep  valley  was  not  slow 

Its  brightness  to  recover. 

*  Eternal  blessings  on  the  Mnse 

And  her  divine  employment, 
The  blameless  Muse  who  trains  her  sons 

For  hope  and  calm  enjoyment; 
Albeit  sickness  lingering  yet 

Has  o'er  their  pillow  brooded, 
And  care  waylays  their  steps — a  sprite 

Not  easily  elnded. 


*  Nor  deem  that  localized  Romance 

Plays  false  with  our  affections ; 
Unsanctifies  our  tears — made  sport 

For  fanciful  dejections : 
Ah,  no !  the  visions  of  the  past 

Sustain  the  heart  in  feeling 
Life  as  she  is — our  changeful  Life 

With  friends  and  kindred  dealing. 

"  Bear  witness  ye,  whose  thoughts  that  day 

In  Yarrow's  groves  were  centred, 
Who  through  the  silent  portal  arch 

Of  mouldering  Newark  enter*d; 
And  olomb  the  winding  stair  that  once 

Too  timidly  was  mounted 
By  the  last  Minstrel — not  the  last ! — 

Ere  he  his  tale  recounted." 

Thus  did  the  meditative  poetry,  the  day  of  -which  was 
not  yet,  do  honour  to  itself  in  doing  homage  to  the 
Minstrel  of  romantic  energy  and  martial  enterprise,  who, 
with  the  school  of  poetry  he  loved,  was  passing  away. 

On  the  23rd  September  Scott  left  Abbotsford,  spend- 
ing five  days  on  his  journey  to  London ;  nor  would  he 
allow  any  of  the  old  objects  of  interest  to  be  passed  with- 


XTI.]  THE  LAST  YEAR.  167 

out  getting  out  of  the  carriage  to  see  them.  He  did  not 
leave  London  for  Portsmouth  till  the  23rd  October,  but 
spent  the  intervening  time  in  London,  where  he  took  me- 
dical advice,  and  with  his  old  shrewdness  wheeled  his  chair 
into  a  dark  corner  during  the  physicians'  absence  from  the 
room  to  consult,  that  he  might  read  their  faces  clearly  on 
their  return  without  their  being  able  to  read  his.  They 
recognized  traces  of  brain  disease,  but  Sir  Walter  was 
relieved  by  their  comparatively  favourable  opinion,  for  he 
admitted  that  he  had  feared  insanity,  and  therefore  had 
"  feared  them."  On  the  29th  October  he  sailed  for  Malta, 
and  on  the  20th  November  Sir  Walter  insisted  on  being 
landed  on  a  small  volcanic  island  which  had  appeared  four 
months  previously,  and  which  disappeared  again  in  a  few 
days,  and  on  clambering  about  its  crumbling  lava,  in  spite 
of  sinking  at  nearly  every  step  almost  up  to  his  knees,  in 
order  that  he  might  send  a  description  of  it  to  his  old 
Mend  Mr.  Skene.  On  the  22nd  November  he  reached 
Malta,  where  he  looked  eagerly  at  the  antiquities  of  the 
place,  for  he  still  hoped  to  write  a  novel — and,  indeed, 
actually  wrote  one  at  Naples,  which  was  never  published, 
called  The  Siege  of  Malta — on  the  subject  of  the  Knights 
of  Malta,  who  had  interested  him  so  much  in  his  youth. 
From  Malta  Scott  went  to  Naples,  which  he  reached 
on  the  17th  December,  and  where  he  found  much 
pleasure  in  the  society  of  Sir  William  Gell,  an  invalid 
like  himself,  but  not  one  who,  like  himself,  struggled 
against  the  admission  of  his  infirmities,  and  refused 
to  be  carried  when  his  own  legs  would  not  safely  carry 
him.  Sir  William  GelTs  dog  delighted  the  old  man ;  he 
would  pat  it  and  call  it  "Poor  boy!"  and  confide  to 
Sir  William  how  he  had  at  home  "  two  very  fine  favourite 
dogs,  so  large  that  I  am  always  afraid  they  look  too  large 


16S  SIR  WALTER  8COTTT.  [CBA*. 

and  too  feudal  for  my  diminished  income."  In  all  his 
letters  home  he  gave  some  injunction  to  Mr.  Laidlaw 
about  the  poor  people  and  the  dogs. 

On  the  22nd  of  March,  1832,  Goethe  died,  an  event 
which  made  a  great  impression  on  Scott,  who  had  intended 
to  visit  "Weimar  on  his  way  back,  on  purpose  to  see 
Goethe,  and  this  much  increased  his  eager  desire  to 
return  home.  Accordingly  on  the  16th  of  April,  the  last 
day  on  which  he  made  any  entry  in  his  diary,  he 
quitted  Naples  for  Rome,  where  he  stayed  long  enough 
only  to  let  his  daughter  see  something  of  the  place,  and 
hurried  off  homewards  on  the  21st  of  May.  In  Venice 
he  was  still  strong  enough  to  insist  on  scrambling  down 
into  the  dungeons  adjoining  the  Bridge  of  Sighs ;  and  at 
Frankfort  he  entered  a  bookseller's  shop,  when  the  man 
brought  out*  a  lithograph  of  Abbotsford,  and  Scott  remark- 
ing, "I  know  that  already,  sir,"  left  the  shop  unrecog- 
nized, more  than  ever  craving  for  home.  At  Nimeguen, 
on  the  9th  of  June,  while  in  a  steamboat  on  the  Rhine, 
he  had  his  most  serious  attack  of  apoplexy,  but  would  not 
discontinue  his  journey,  was  lifted  into  an  English  steam- 
boat at  Rotterdam  on  the  llth  of  June,  and  arrived  in 
London  on  the  13th.  There  he  recognized  his  children, 
and  appeared  to  expect  immediate  death,  as  he  gave  them 
repeatedly  his  most  solemn  blessing,  but  for  the  most  part 
he  lay  at  the  St.  James's  Hotel,  in  Jermyn  Street,  without 
any  power  to  converse.  There  it  was  that  Allan  Cun- 
ningham, on  walking  home  one  night,  found  a  group  of 
working  men  at  the  corner  of  the  street,  who  stopped  hi™ 
and  asked,  "  as  if  there  was  but  one  death-bed  in  London, 
'Do  you  know,  sir,  if  this  is  the  street  where  he  is 
ying  ? ' "  According  to  the  usual  irony  of  destiny,  it  was 
while  the  working  men  were  doing  him  this  hearty  and 


TO.]  THE  LAST  YEAR.  169 

unconscious  homage,  that  Sir  "Walter,  whenever  disturbed 
by  the  noises  of  the  street,  imagined  himself  at  the  polling- 
booth  of  Jedburgh,  where  the  people  had  cried  out,  "  Burk 
Sir  "Walter."  And  it  was  while  lying  here, — only  now 
and  then  uttering  a  few  words, — that  Mr.  Lockhart  says 
of  him,  "  He  expressed  his  will  as  determinedly  as  ever, 
and  expressed  it  with  the  same  apt  and  good-natured 
irony  that  he  was  wont  to  use." 

Sir  Walter's  great  and  urgent  desire  was  to  return  to 
Abbotsford,  and  at  last  his  physicians  yielded.  On  the 
7th  July  he  was  lifted  into  his  carriage,  followed  by  his 
trembling  and  weeping  daughters,  and  so  taken  to  a 
steamboat,  where  the  captain  gave  up  his  private  cabin — 
a  cabin  on  deck — for  his  use.  He  remained  unconscious 
of  any  change  till  after  his  arrival  in  Edinburgh,  when, 
on  the  llth  July,  he  was  placed  again  in  his  carriage,  and 
remained  in  it  quite  unconscious  during  the  first  two 
stages  of  the  journey  to  Tweedside.  But  as  the  carriage 
entered  the  valley  of  the  Gala,  he  began  to  look  about  him. 
Presently  he  murmured  a  name  or  two,  "Gala  water, 
surely, — Buckholm, — Torwoodlee."  "When  the  outline 
of  the  Eildon  hilla  came  in  view,  Scott's  excitement  was 
great,  and  when  his  eye  caught  the  towers  of  Abbotsford, 
he  sprang  up  with  a  cry  of  delight,  and  while  the  towers 
remained  in  sight  it  took  his  physician,  his  son-in-law, 
and  his  servant,  to  keep  him  in  the  carriage.  Mr.  Laidlaw 
was  waiting  for  him,  and  he  met  MTQ  with  a  cry,  "  Ha  ! 
Willie  Laidlaw !  0,  man,  how  often  I  have  thought  of 
you  I"  His  dogs  came  round  his  chair  and  began  to  fawn 
on  him  and  lick  his  hands,  while  Sir  Walter  smiled  ox 
sobbed  over  them.  The  next  morning  he  was  wheeled 
about  his  garden,  and  on  the  following  morning  was  out 
in  this  way  for  a  couple  of  hours ;  within  a  day  or  two  he 
M  8*  1* 


170  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 

fancied  that  he  could  write  again,  but  on  taking  the  pen  into 
his  hand,  his  fingers  could  not  clasp  it,  and  he  sank  back 
with  tears  rolling  down  his  cheek.  Later,  when  Laid* 
law  said  in  his  hearing  that  Sir  Walter  had  had  a  little 
repose,  he  replied,  "  No,  Willie;  no  repose  for  Sir  Walter 
but  in  the  grave."  As  the  tears  rushed  from  his  eyes,  his 
old  pride  revived.  "  Friends,"  he  said,  "  don't  let  me  ex- 
pose myself — get  me  to  bed, — that  is  the  only  place." 

After  this  Sir  Walter  never  left  his  room.  Occasionally 
he  dropped  off  into  delirium,  and  the  old  painful  memory, — 
that  cry  of  "  Burk  Sir  Walter," — might  be  again  heard 
on  his  lips.  He  lingered,  however,  till  the  21»t  Sep- 
tember,— more  than  two  months  from  the  day  of  his 
reaching  home,  and  a  year  from  the  day  of  Wordsworth's 
arrival  at  Abbotsford  before  his  departure  for  the  Me- 
diterranean, with  only  one  clear  interval  of  conscious- 
ness, on  Monday,  the  17th  September.  On  that  day  Mr. 
Lockhart  was  called  to  Sir  Walter's  bedside  with  the  news 
that  he  had  awakened  in  a  state  of  composure  and  con- 
sciousness, and  wished  to  see  him.  "  '  Lockhart,'  he  said, 
'  I  may  have  but  a  minute  to  speak  to  you.  My  dear, 
be  a  good  man, — be  virtuous, — be  religious,— be  a  good 
man.  Nothing  else  will  give  you  any  comfort  when  you 
come  to  lie  here.'  He  paused,  and  I  said,  '  Shall  I  send 
for  Sophia  and  Annel'  'No,'  said  he,  'don't  disturb 
them.  Poor  souls !  I  know  they  were  up  all  night. 
God  bless  you  all!'"  With  this  he  sank  into  a  very 
tranquil  sleep,  and,  indeed,  he  scarcely  afterwards  gave 
any  sign  of  consciousness  except  for  an  instant  on  the 
arrival  of  his  sons.  And  so  four  days  afterwards,  on  the 
day  of  the  autumnal  equinox  in  1832,  at  half -past  one  in 
the  afternoon,  on  a  glorious  autumn  day,  with  every 
window  wide  open,  and  the  ripple  of  the  Tweed  over  its 


«TI.]  THE  LAST  YEAR.  171 

pebbles  distinctly  audible  in  his  room,  he  passed  away, 
and  "  his  eldest  son  kissed  and  closed  his  eyes."  He  died 
a  month  after  completing  his  sixty-first  year.  Nearly 
seven  years  earlier,  on  the  7th  December,  1825,  he  had 
in  his  diary  taken  a  survey  of  his  own  health  in  relation 
to  the  age  reached  by  his  father  and  other  members  of  his 
family,  and  had  stated  as  the  result  of  his  considerations, 
"Square  the  odds  and  good  night,  Sir  Walter,  about  sixty. 
I  care  not  if  I  leave  my  name  unstained  and  my  family 
property  settled.  Sat  eat  vixisse."  Thus  he  lived  just  a 
year — but  a  year  of  gradual  death — beyond  his  own 
calculation. 


CHAPTEE  XVIL 

THE  END   OF  THE  STRUGGLE. 

SIB  WAI/TER  certainly  left  his  "  name  unstained,"  unlew 
the  serious  mistakes  natural  to  a  sanguine  temperament 
such  as  his,  are  to  be  counted  as  stains  upon  his  name ; 
and  if  they  are,  where  among  the  sons  of  men  would 
you  find  many  unstained  names  as  noble  as  his  with 
such  a  stain  upon  it?  He  was  not  only  sensitively 
honourable  in  motive,  but,  when  he  found  what  evil  hia 
sanguine  temper  had  worked,  he  used  his  gigantic  powers 
to  repair  it,  as  Samson  used  his  great  strength  to  repair 
the  mischief  he  had  inadvertently  done  to  Israel.  But  with 
all  his  exertions  he  had  not,  when  death  came  upon  him, 
cleared  off  much  more  than  half  his  obligations.  There 
was  still  54,OOOZ.  to  pay.  But  of  this,  22,OOOZ.  was 
secured  in  an  insurance  on  his  life,  and  there  were  besides 
a  thousand  pounds  or  two  in  the  hands  of  the  trustees, 
which  had  not  been  applied  to  the  extinction  of  the  debt. 
Mr.  Cadell,  his  publisher,  accordingly  advanced  the 
remaining  30,000?.  on  the  security  of  Sir  Walter's  copy- 
rights, and  on  the  21st  February,  1833,  the  general 
creditors  were  paid  in  full,  and  Mr.  Cadell  remained  the 
only  creditor  of  the  estate.  In  February,  1847,  Sir 
Walter's  son,  the  second  baronet,  died  childless ;  and  in 
May,  1847,  Mr.  Cadell  gave  a  discharge  in  full  of  all 


xvn.]  THE  END  OF  THE  STRUGGLE.  17? 

claims,  including  the  bond  for  10,OOOZ.  executed  by  Sir 
Walter  during  the  struggles  of  Constable  and  Co.  to 
prevent  a  failure,  on  the  transfer  to  him  of  all  the  copy- 
rights of  Sir  Walter,  including  "the  results  of  some 
literary  exertions  of  the  sole  surviving  executor,"  which 
I  conjecture  to  mean  the  copyright  of  the  admirable 
biography  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  in  ten  volumes,  to  which  I 
have  made  such  a  host  of  references — probably  the  most 
perfect  specimen  of  p  biography  rich  in  great  materials, 
which  our  language  contains.  And  thus,  nearly  fifteen 
years  after  Sir  Walter's  death,  the  debt  which,  within  six 
years,  he  had  more  than  half  discharged,  was  at  last, 
through  the  value  of  the  copyrights  he  had  left  behind 
him,  finally  extinguished,  and  the  small  estate  of  Abbots- 
ford  left  cleared. 

Sir  Walter's  effort  to  found  a  new  house  was  even  less 
successful  than  the  effort  to  endow  it.  His  eldest  son 
died  childless.  In  1839  he  went  to  Madras,  as  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  of  the  15th  Hussars,  and  subsequently  com- 
manded that  regiment.  He  was  as  much  beloved  by  the 
officers  of  his  regiment  as  his  father  had  been  by  his  own 
Mends,  and  was  in  every  sense  an  accomplished  soldier, 
and  one  whose  greatest  anxiety  it  was  to  promote  the  welfare 
of  the  privates  as  well  as  of  the  officers  of  his  regiment. 
He  took  great  pains  in  founding  a  library  for  the  soldiers 
of  his  corps,  and  his  only  legacy  out  of  his  own  family 
was  one  of  100Z.  to  this  library.  The  cause  of  his  death 
was  his  having  exposed  himself  rashly  to  the  sun  in  a 
tiger-hunt,  in  August,  1846  ;  he  never  recovered  from  the 
fever  which  was  the  immediate  consequence.  Ordered 
home  for  his  health,  he  died  near  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope, 
on  the  8th  of  February,  1847.  His  brother  Charles  died 
before  him.  He  was  rising  rapidly  in  the  diplomatic 


174  SIB,  WALTBB  SCOTT.  [CHAP. 

service,  and  was  taken  to  Persia  by  Sir  John  MacNeill,  on 
a  diplomatic  mission,  as  attache  and  private  secretary 
But  the  climate  struck  him  down,  and  he  died  at  Teheran, 
almost  immediately  on  his  arrival,  on  the  28th  October, 
1841.  Both  the  sisters  had  died  previously.  Anne 
Scott,  the  younger  of  the  two,  whose  health  had  suffered 
greatly  during  the  prolonged  anxiety  of  her  father's  illness, 
died  on  the  Midsummer-day  of  the  year  following  her 
father's  death ;  and  Sophia,  Mrs.  Lockhart,  died  on  the 
17th  May,  1837.  Sir  Walter's  eldest  grandchild,  John 
Hugh  Lockhart,  for  whom  the  Tales  of  a  Grandfather 
were  written,  died  before  his  grandfather ;  indeed  Sir 
Walter  heard  of  the  child's  death  at  Naples.  The  second 
son,  Walter  Scott  Lockhart  Scott,  a  lieutenant  in  the 
army,  died  at  Versailles,  on  the  10th  January,  1853. 
Charlotte  Harriet  Jane  Lockhart,  who  was  married  in 
1847  to  James  Kobert  Hope-Scott,  and  succeeded  to  the 
Abbotsford  estate,  died  at  Edinburgh,  on  the  26th 
October,  1858,  leaving  three  children,  of  whom  only  one 
survives.  Walter  Michael  and  Margaret  Anne  Hope- 
Scott  both  died  in  infancy.  The  only  direct  descendant, 
therefore,  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  is  now  Mary  Monica  Hope- 
Scott  who  was  born  on  the  2nd  October,  1852,  the 
grandchild  of  Mrs.  Lockhart.  and  the  great-grandchild  of 
the  founder  of  Abbotsford. 

There  is  something  of  irory  in  such  a  result  of  the 
Herculean  labours  of  Scott  to  found  and  endow  a  new 
branch  of  the  clan  of  Scott.  When  fifteen  years  after  his 
death  the  estate  was  at  length  freed  from  debt,  all  his  own 
children  and  the  eldest  of  his  grandchildren  were  dead ; 
and  now  forty-six  years  have  elapsed,  and  there  only  re- 
mains one  girl  of  his  descendants  to  borrow  his  name  and 
live  in  the  halls  of  which  he  was  so  proud.  And  yet  this, 


JWli.]  THE  END  OF  THE  STRUGGLE.  175 

and  this  only,  was  wanting  to  give  something  of  the  gran- 
deur of  tragedy  to  the  end  of  Scott's  great  enterprise.  He 
valued  his  works  little  compared  with  the  house  and 
lands  which  they  were  to  be  the  means  of  gaining  for  hia 
descendants ;  yet  every  end  for  which  he  struggled  so 
gallantly  is  all  but  lost,  while  his  works  have  gained  more 
of  added  lustre  from  the  losing  battle  which  he  fought  so 
long,  than  they  could  ever  have  gained  from  his  success. 

What  there  was  in  him  of  true  grandeur  could  never 
have  been  seen,  had  the  fifth  act  of  his  life  been  less 
tragic  than  it  was.  Generous,  large-hearted,  and  mag- 
nanimous as  Scott  was,  there  was  something  in  the  days 
of  his  prosperity  that  fell  short  of  what  men  need  for  their 
highest  ideal  of  a  strong  man.  Unbroken  success,  un- 
rivalled popularity,  imaginative  effort  flowing  almost  as 
steadily  as  the  current  of  a  stream, — these  are  charac- 
teristics, which,  even  when  enhanced  as  they  were  in  his 
case,  by  the  power  to  defy  physical  pain,  and  to  live  in 
his  imaginative  world  when  his  body  was  writhing  in 
torture,  fail  to  touch  the  heroic  point.  And  there  was 
nothing  in  Scott,  while  he  remained  prosperous,  to  relieve 
adequately  the  glare  of  triumphant  prosperity.  Hia 
religious  and  moral  feeling,  though  strong  and  sound,  was 
purely  regulative,  and  not  always  even  regulative,  where 
his  inward  principle  was  not  reflected  in  the  opinions  of 
the  society  in  which  ho  lived.  The  finer  spiritual  ele- 
ment in  Scott  was  relatively  deficient,  and  so  the 
strength  of  the  natural  man  was  almost  too  equal,  com- 
plete, and  glaring.  Something  that  should  "tame 
the  glaring  white  "  of  that  broad  sunshine,  was  needed ; 
and  in  the  years  of  reverse,  when  one  gift  after 
another  was  taken  away,  till  at  length  what  he  called 
even  hia  "uiagic  wand"  was  broken,  and  the  old  man 


V/G  SIB  WALTER  SCOTT. 

struggled  on  to  the  last,  without  bitterness,  without 
defiance,  without  murmuring,  but  not  without  such  sud- 
den flashes  of  subduing  sweetness  as  melted  away  the 
anger  of  the  teacher  of  his  childhood, — that  something 
seemed  to  be  supplied.  Till  calamity  came,  Scott  ap- 
peared to  be  a  nearly  complete  natural  man,  and  no 
more.  Then  first  was  perceived  in  him  something  above 
nature,  something  which  could  endure  though  every 
end  in  life  for  which  he  had  fought  so  boldly  should 
be  defeated, — something  which  could  endure  and  more 
than  endure,  which  could  shoot  a  soft  transparence  of 
its  own  through  his  years  of  darkness  and  decay.  That 
there  was  nothing  very  elevated  in  Scott's  personal  or 
moral,  or  political  or  literary  ends, — that  he  never  for  a 
moment  thought  of  himself  as  one  who  was  bound  to 
leave  the  earth  better  than  he  found  it, — that  he  never 
seems  to  have  so  much  as  contemplated  a  social  or  political 
reform  for  which  he  ought  to  contend, — that  he  lived  to 
some  extent  like  a  child  blowing  soap-bubbles,  the  brightest 
and  most  gorgeous  of  which — the  Abbotsford  bubble — 
vanished  before  his  eyes,  is  not  a  take-off  from  the 
charm  of  his  career,  but  adds  to  it  the  very  speciality  of 
its  fascination.  For  it  was  his  entire  unconsciousness  of 
moral  or  spiritual  efforts,  the  simple  straightforward  way 
in  which  he  laboured  for  ends  of  the  most  ordinary  kind, 
which  made  it  clear  how  mucn  greater  the  man  was  than 
his  ends,  how  great  was  the  mind  and  character  which 
prosperity  failed  to  display,  but  which  became  visible  at 
once  so  soon  as  the  storm  came  down  and  the  night  fell. 
Few  men  who  battle  avowedly  for  the  right,  battle  for  it 
with  the  calm  fortitude,  the  cheerful  equanimity,  with 
which  Scott  battled  to  fulfil  his  engagements  and  to  sava 
his  family  from  ruin.  He  stood  high  amongst  those — 


XTH.J  THE  END  OP  THE  STRUGGLE,  177 

"  Who  ever  with  a  frolic  welcome  took 
The  thunder  and  the  sunshine,  and  opposed 
Free  hearts,  free  foreheads," 

among  those  who  have  been  able  to  display — 

"  One  equal  temper  of  heroic  hearts 
Made  weak  by  time  and  fate,  but  strong  in  will, 
To  strive,  to  seek,  to  find,  and  not  to  yield." 

And  it  was  because  the  man  was  so  much  greater  than  the 
ends  for  which  he  strove,  that  there  is  a  sort  of  grandetu 
in  the  tragic  fete  which  denied  them  to  him,  and  yet 
exhibited  to  all  the  world  the  infinite  superiority  of  the 
strive*  himself  to  the  toy  he  was  thus  passionately  craving. 


THE    END. 


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